As of November, wood from Pomeranian forests will no longer be covered by a valid ecological certificate, decided Bartlomiej Obajtek, director of the Regional Directorate of State Forests in Gdansk, brother of Daniel Obajtek. Both business and environmentalists are sounding the alarm.
„The Regional Directorate of State Forests in Gdansk informs that it has decided to abandon the continuation of forest management certification in the FSC system.” – reads an August 11 announcement published on the website of the Gdansk RDSF. This means that in November timber from Pomeranian forests will lose the most important international certificate.
The director of the RDLP in Gdansk, Bartlomiej Obajtek (privately the brother of PKN Orlen boss Daniel Obajtek), had already spoken about these plans in the spring. According to „Rzeczpospolita,” the argument given by the RDSF was that maintaining the certificate „could result in a number of damages to the forest economy, and consequently also to the national economy and the timber industry through a significant, in the near term, reduction in the availability of wood from Polish forests on the internal market.”
This idea did not arouse the enthusiasm of business, which may simply lose customers as a consequence.
– Customers will not buy our products without this certificate. Today we pride ourselves on producing windows or furniture, in a moment we will be excluded from the market, Rafal Szefler, director of the Polish Economic Chamber of Wood Industry, told „Rz” in April. According to him, it is the foreign customers who require the FSC certificate.
Environmentalists are also protesting against the decision of the Gdansk branch of the State Forests. „Pomeranian forests will already be cut without the restrictions of the international FSC certificate”. – write members of the „Our Forests” organization. (…)
MPs Agnieszka Pomaska and Barbara Nowacka have submitted an MP interpellation on this issue to Minister of Climate and Environment Anna Moskva. In the letter they ask:
– What were the reasons behind the decision to abandon forest certification under the FSC system?
– Has there been an analysis of the environmental effects and risks of this decision? If so, please make it available.
– Has there been an analysis of the effects and risks to people living in Pomerania, to nature conservation and to business entities associated with the timber industry?
source: innpoland.pl
