The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a leading forestry certification body, has launched an investigation against Malaysian timber giant, Samling Global Limited, following complaints of violations.

Announcing this in a statement yesterday, FSC said it is probing the matter after establishing two FSC certificate holders are indirectly involved in “alleged unacceptable activities”.

The two entities are holders of FSC chain of custody certificates, which guarantees that the timber they used was procured through sustainable means.

The complaint to FSC was lodged in October 2022 by a coalition of organisations including Save Rivers, Gerenai Community Rights Action Committee (GCRAC), Keruan Organisation, The Borneo Project, and Bruno Manser Fund.

The complainants alleged Samling violated FSC standards in four areas, including violation of human rights through forestry operations and destroying high conservation value forests.

They alleged the activities happened between 2017 to 2022, among others, in the Upper Baram Forest Area in Sarawak, home to the Penan community.

“The allegations have been made against entities of Samling Global Limited that are not FSC-certified but are connected to two chain of custody certificate holders that also belong to the Samling group.

“Due to the chain of custody certificate holders’ indirect involvement in the alleged unacceptable activities defined in FSC’s Policy for Association, FSC has decided to accept the complaint and open a Policy for Association case against Samling Global Limited,” the council said.

Samling has repeatedly denied the allegations and has taken civil action against Save Rivers.

Besides FSC, the NGOs have also complained to the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), which has certified Samling’s forestry activities as sustainable.

The MTCS dispute resolution process has been postponed pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

The MTCS told Malaysiakini although its guidelines only require auditors to conduct interviews with a 10 percent sampling of households, auditors have conducted interviews with all households due to the dispute in Baram.

Malaysiakini managed to get a response from Samling on the FSC probe.

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Responding to the FSC investigation, William Tingang, an indigenous resident of Long Moh in Baram, said this is proof the complaint has substance.

“We ask that they continue to take legal action against Samling because of how they blatantly disrespected our rights and how ‘Reduce Impact Logging’ is not followed correctly on our land.

“FSC would only take up our case if the claim against the company is serious, and backed up by evidence,” he said in a statement.

No engagement, communities in the dark

Meanwhile, The Borneo Project and Bruno Manser Fund said poor community engagement in forest certification is an issue Sarawak-wide.

The Borneo Project director Jettie Word said “flawed” environment impact assessments have also caused distrust between indigenous people and hydropower, forestry, and palm oil firms.

“There is no public participation requirement for impact assessments, and the narrow disclosure policy leaves indigenous communities in the dark.

“If auditors and companies listened to community concerns and respected their land rights in the first place, we wouldn’t see Save Rivers being sued by Samling, and organisations like FSC wouldn’t have to step in to investigate.”

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