Social, economic and environmental contexts

Social, economic and environmental contexts influence the process of adaptation to FSC certification in the locality and often determine the ways of constructing trust in the company on the local and global levels. In our case, the construction of trust between PLO Onegales and the local community is based on both old and new forms of socio-ecological responsibility, on building personal trust through regular interaction or its absence.

The Arkhangelsk region has developed an intensive forest industry since the mid-20th century, when many forest settlements were built in order to provide manpower for the many new state logging enterprises («lespromkhozes»). The social life of those settlements was completely oriented to providing logging enterprises with a labor force, and correspondingly the logging enterprise was responsible for financing the infrastructure of the settlements. Thus, they were called «forest settlements» (Pchelkina, Kulyasova, Kulyasov 2004: 27-29; Kulyasova, Kulyasov 2007: 23-27).

Nowadays many old logging enterprises continue their work after various structural transformations and numerous changes of owners. Today (2009) almost all are integrated into large regional, Russian or international holdings functioning in the Arkhangelsk region (Interview with a representative of the Department of Forest Industry of the Administration of the Arkhangelsk Region 2004). PLO Onegales was incorporated into an international holding of Russian origin called Investlesprom. The wood production of this region is mostly exported to environmentally and socially sensitive markets in Europe. For this particular reason the Arkhangelsk region became the leader in mass FSC forest certification in Russia.

By the end of 2008 forest management of the majority of forest territories leased by Arkhangelsk forest holdings had an FSC certificate or was in the process of certification (FSC web site www.fsc.ru). In the case of PLO Onegales, all their leased forests were certified (Public reports on certification by Maloshuilakales, Nimengales, PLO Onegales, www.gfa-group.de/beitrag/home_beitrag_903550.html).

The features of the local context in the case under review indicates that there are three types of settlements near the forests leased by PLO Onegales, and three types of interaction between the local population and the company are evident.

The three logging companies Maloshuikales, Nimengales and Iarnemale of PLO Onegales are located in the above-mentioned forest settlements created in the Soviet era in the mid-20^th century. Traditional relationships between logging enterprises and the local population formed in this period still determine some settled forms of corporate social responsibility of the forest companies. Inhabitants of the settlements continue their work at the new forest companies that replaced the former Soviet enterprises, and expect the same social responsibility and help from the new companies. The companies partly continued the tradition of supporting local infrastructure, i.e. we see here a paternalistic interaction between a settlement-forming enterprise and the local population (Kulyasova, Kulyasov, Kotilainen 2006: 81-112).

Another settlement form is the traditional villages housing old residents or people seasonally coining from cities. Their inhabitants used to work on Soviet farms («sovkhozes»), which were closed down in the post-Soviet period. Very few people from such villages work at logging companies. These villages either had no settled relationship with forest companies or expectations of social responsibility, hence, no trust in PLO Onegales had even been constructed. The companies do not exhibit paternalistic attitudes towards these villages (Interview with a representative of the Administration of Oshevensk village 2006). However, FSC certification requirements generated the need for interaction with the population of such villages and building their trust and the administration of PLO Onegales realized this fact.

The third type of settlements located nearby forests leased by PLO Onegales are the traditional villages of coast-dwellers who identify themselves as indigenous people named Pomors. They traditionally work at fishing collective farms (kolkhozes) which still exist (2009). These people had no trust in PLO Onegales. On the contrary, there was a conflict of interests in the forest management area which gave rise to personal mistrust in Onegales and mistrust on the abstract level in any forest operator. The life of the Pomors depends very much on fishing and hunting. They do not work in the logging companies and are mostly oriented to traditional forest utilization.

PLO Onegales had not considered the Pomors as stakeholders and for a long time did not realize any collision of their interests. The reason for this situation was that the status of the Pomors as indigenous people was not recognized officially by the Russian state, and PLO Onegales did not take the traditional rights of this ethnical group into account. However, as FSC certification recognizes any indigenous people or self-identified ethnic groups and requires observance of their rights, PLO Onegales was forced to consider this feature and accordingly to form its policy during certification and after having received the FSC certificate.

It should be noted that the Pomors are indeed an independent subethnos (Bershtam 1978) historically living on a vast territory called Pomorie (Bulatov 1999), Arkhangelsk region being the center of it. They identify themselves as ethnic community and their NGOs struggle to have their status as an indigenous people recognized by the state (Interview with a representative of the National Cultural Center «Pomors (coast-dwellers) Revival» 2005, 2007). Later, through the efforts of NGOsand experts their rights as indigenous people were assigned in the Russian National Standard of the FSC. At the time of the case study, this was a contested issue for the company and auditors who regarded Pomor communities as ordinary local communities. Later, we will analyze how the intervention of NGOs and experts helped to change this situation and forced the company to fulfill its responsibilities according to the FSC certification requirements.

Thus, all three categories of settlements are stakeholders interested in forest utilization according to FSC certification and should thus be included in the list of interested groups, and be able to enjoy the corporate social responsibility of the PLO Onegales.

The key feature of the environmental context of the case is the presence of old-growth forest in the territories leased by PLO Onegales. These forests are located on the Onega peninsula, between the Dvina and Pinega rivers, near the border with the republic of Karelia, and in other places (Map of the old-growth forests, www.greenpeace.org/russia/ru/press/releases/366571, www.intactforests.org).

European consumers refuse to buy wood derived from old-growth forests, and the NGO networks struggle for their conservation. Hence, this feature of the local environmental context has an important effect on the construction of trust on the international level. The old-growth forests were traditionally considered by Soviet forestry as overripe forests that should be cut (Conversation with a director of PLO Onegales in 2006).

Experts and eco-NGOs assessed them as high conservation value forests, important to the conservation of biodiversity and rare species, and for a sustained ecosystem of our planet. As eco-NGOs created an international discourse of old-growth forests as an environmental value, the refusal to cut in such forests is now an obligatory component of trust in a forest company. Eco-NGOs try to conserve these forests either through lobbying for the creation of special protected areas by the state or persuading forest companies to voluntarily conserve these territories. Forest companies signed a moratorium on cutting wood in the old-growth forests. A part of the forest territories leased by PLO Onegales in 2005 on the Onega peninsula were planned as a national park in the 1990s and were the focus of especially rapt interest of eco-NGOs.