Role of regional and local NGOs

Interaction between the holding company and regional and local NGOs started later, as they were not identified as FSC-certification stakeholders, and were not informed by the company of the fact that certification provides them with new rights influencing the eco-social responsibility of certified companies. Such NGOs as Aetas, Pomorskoe Vozrozhdenie, Pomor Public Policy Center and Pomor People’s Community had their own interests conflicting with the forest activity of PLO Onegales. Aetas cooperated with experts and Greenpeace about creating the Onezhskoe Pomorie National Park and was interested in the conservation of forests on the Onega peninsula (Interview with a representative of the NGO Etas 2007). The Pomor Public Policy Center, in partnership with WWF-Arkhangelsk, developed and introduced regional methodology for identifying high conservation value forests (HCVF) and organized public hearings (Interview with a representative of Pomor Public Policy Center and WWF- Arkhangelsk 2007). Pomorskoe Vozrozhdenie struggled for the conservation of traditional Pomor culture on the Onega peninsula. Pomor People’s Community strove for the preservation of their traditional life and traditional natural resources utilization (Interview with a representative of National and Cultural Center Pomorskoye Vozrozhdenie 2006).

Before starting a dialogue and interaction in the framework of FSC certification, regional NGOs mistrusted the holding and its logging companies. After 2007 this situation changed radically. In 2007, local Pomor and eco-NGOs requested the inclusion of PLO Onegales in the list of stakeholders. They did not succeed immediately, and were only officially recognized as stakeholders half a year later, after several publications in the mass media (Raikhner, 2007) and through internet list servers. In these puhlications the NGOs asked the company to demonstrate eco-social responsibility. A bad image in this respect could have destroyed public trust and thus prompted PLO Onegales and auditors to start interacting with local NGOs.

Finally this interaction contributed to forming public trust in the company on the regional and local levels and encouraged the enlargement of the sphere and forms of environmental and social responsibility by PLO Onegales. Local NGOs were invited to a meeting with the company and auditors during the next control audit of the companies managed by PLO Onegales. Preparing for the meeting NGOs studied the FSC standards, the company’s public reports and consulted with experts. They united their efforts and composed a common proposal to PLO Onegales concerning the improvement of their corporate system of eco-social responsibility, to make it conform to the FSC requirements (Journals of participatory observation 2007).

The main demand of the local NGOs was to recognize Principle 3 of the FSC standards concerning «rights of indigenous people», and apply it to the Pomors. The protocol* signed in the presence of auditors at the meeting stipulated: «Participation of the local population in identifying plots of high social value forests, providing the local population with logging plots for firewood and carving wood, and assistance in creating a national park.» The company recognized all these proposals but the last. Thus at this stage NGOs contributed to a more complete fulfillment of the responsibilities of the holding and acted as guarantor of trust in forest companies at the local level.

Regional and local NGOs later reduced their interaction with the company, and accordingly weakened their role in the construction of trust. There were several reasons for the passivity of local NGOs, the main reason being the lack of needed resources, because interaction in the frame of certification requires special knowledge, additional efforts and time. Only the added efforts of experts enabled the company to keep its promises.

 

The role of experts

During the certification process PLO Onegales had to contact several groups of experts, which greatly influenced the localization of global practices and the construction of trust between the company, local people and regional NGOs. Experts with the necessary competence, resources and special interest in the quality of the FSC certification finally became the main guarantors of the implementation of the FSC system, both in the locality and globally.

PLO Onegales worked with experts from the Arkhangelsk Certification Center and the auditor company GFA (www.gfa-group.de), who were certifying the forest management of PLO Onegales, as well as with social experts of the Center of Independent Social Research (CISR) from St. Petersburg.

 

 

Arkhangelsk Certification Center

Arkhangelsk Certification Center was first created on the basis of the Northern Forestry Research Institute as a center of information on forest certification and sustainable forest management. It was supported by WWF. Furthermore, when the need for preparation of companies for certification arose, the nonprofit partnership Northern Center of Forest Certification was registered by the initiative of a group of experts (interview with the head of the Northern Center of Forest Certification 2004).

The group of experts of the Arkhangelsk Certification Center contributed greatly to the localization of the FSC certification system and took part in constructing trust in the company in the local community. Especially strong was their influence at the initial stage, during the certification of Maloshuikales. As mentioned above, they developed a program of social responsibility for Maloshuikales for the period of 49 years. The weakness of this program was that it was unknown and unpublicized in the local community.

When PLO Onegales took over the management of Maloshuikales, the program was not supported by the new administration, and only some of the initial points of this plan were implemented. However, even this small implemented part of the program concerning social development and support for the local population had a positive effect on instilling trust in the local population in considering Maloshuikales socially responsible. Maloshuikales also gained the trust of the eco-NGOs, as the company respected recommendations of the Arkhangelsk Certification Center and conducted biological research on its leased territories as well as conserving plots of high conservation value forests. The company also developed their environmental policy (Interview of a director of Maloshuikales). All these actions were intended to raise the image of the company as environmentally responsible.

 

Expert auditors of the GFA

Experts-auditors often play a key role in forming abstract trust in the certification system, as they are responsible for the quality of certification of concrete companies. However, in the opinion of the local community they are usually not considered an important agent. In our case, the auditors were, however, stirring mistrust of the certification of the PLO Onegales in the locality, since they paid too little attention to the interaction between the company and local communities.

Experts-auditors can lead the activity of the company in the desired direction, addressing corrective action requests (CAR). The company should eliminate discovered incompliance with the FSC standards (Maletz and Tysiachniouk, forthcoming). In the analyzed case, GFA auditors, understanding that certification is a long process and all non-compliance can not be corrected at once, focused firstly on FSC principles and criteria concerning logging and accident prevention issues, as well as on the environmental issues important to foreign consumers. The problems of social principles and criteria defining interaction with the local population and indigenous peoples were approached more formally. As the auditors did not pay enough attention to this aspect, the company did not put enough effort into informing the population about their new rights provided by certification. Principle 3 was not applied to the Pomors, since neither the auditors nor the company regarded them as an indigenous people.

 

The role of social experts

A third group of experts - social experts from CISR* - played the most important part in constructing trust between the local community, regional NGOs and PLO Onegales, as their activity focused on solving the problems of interaction with local and indigenous people. This group from CISR had participated in developing the social section of the Russian national standard of the FSC. These experts and consultants acted as federal stakeholders of certification, at the same time doing research on the implementation of the certification process in Russia.

They firstly interacted with PLO Onegales during their research projects, and faced mistrust from the part of the company and a lack of readiness to provide any sort of information. The experts were interested in promoting FSC social standards in Russia and were assisting regional and local stakeholders to understand their new rights by stimulating the company to fulfill their social responsibilities. Social experts consulted regional and local NGOs and encouraged them to become slakeholgers and formulate theirinterests to PLO Onegales. They organized a constructive dialogue between the company, NGOs and auditors and helped build a fruithful interplay and trust between them.

Another direction of their work concerned local and Pomor people. They co­operated with PLO Onegales and helped them organize a number of consultations with Pomors concerning identifying and removing socially valuable forest areas from logging. By this time the company became part of the Investlesprom holding, with which the social experts had already been successfully co-operating, a fact that positively affected their work. The consultations organized by the CISR experts together with the NGO Aetas and representatives of PLO Onegales in Pomor villages on the Onega peninsula in March 2008 maintained a constructive dialogue in spite of the strong original mistrust of local people.