Transcript (pptx file, 145 KB) Dénis Koulagna Koutou, Secretary General

Dénis KOULAGNA KOUTOU
Secretary General
Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife
Cameroon
Guidelines
 Evolution of private certification in Cameroon
 What about private certifications
 Measures taken for Certificate of Legality
 Process followed for Private Certification schemes
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
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
recognition
Case study in Cameroon
Output of the process until now
Chain of custody constraints
Next steps
Conclusions of the study
Evolution of managed forest
Cameroon production
forest area: 8,4 Millions
Ha
Without
Management
Plan
With
Management
Plan
Situation of the certification
12
Sustainable 956.000 ha FSC (OLB)
Mgt
certified
FSC
14
31
TLTV by SGS
1.102.000 ha TLTV
Certified
Legality
13
OLB by Bureau Veritas
900.000 ha OLB only
45
Managed
plan
FMU
in 2012
about 54 % of
the area of
FMU with MP
are under
private
certification
3
FSC-CW
1
VLC by Smartwood-Rainforest
Actual situation
 12 Forest Management Unit are sustainable




management (FSC)
31 Forest Management Unit are certified legality (14
TLTV from SGS, 13 OLB from Bureau Veritas, 3 FSCCW, et 1 VLC from Smarthwood-Rainforest)
Certification operators are accredited by FSC for
sustainable management; they develop their own
legality standards
3 titles out of 8 are not covered by private certification
Council Forest standard exist with FSC but no
certificate has been yet delivered
What about private certification in VPA
According to the Legality Assurance System
 Certification bodies have to be approved for each standard
they used
 Entities holding a recognized private certificate could use it
for their request of certificate of legality
 Recognized private certification is not equivalent to
Certificate of Legality and of course not to FLEGT Export
License
 Not all of Private Certificate are eligible (Example: Chain of
Custody’s Certificate is not eligible)
Measures taken by Cameroon
Arrêté 0004/MINFOF Febr 7th 2013
• List of documents to be provided to comply with VPA
legality matrix (art 10)
• The operators owning a recognized private certification
for their titles could get a Certificate of Legality if an
authentified copy of their valid private certificate from an
recognized certification body is provided (art 15)
• All operators have to provide the Cameroonian official
Forest Information System SIGIF with the required
documents (art 12 & 13)
Minfof internal procedures to analyse all demand of
Certificate of Legality
Process followed in Cameroon for private
certification schemes recognition
 Definition and validation of the evaluation
methodology
 Analysis process by a Consultant :
 Identification of existing private certification schemes
 Request from certification bodies operating in
Cameroon their local used certification schemes
standard and audit methodology
 Assessment of certification schemes standard
 Assessment of certification bodies audit methodology
 3 restitutions of the consultant findings during the
process involving private sector and advisors
 Validation workshop
What the MINFOF Case Study shows
 Some private certificate are issued even if all criteria are not
100% verified
 Some private certificate are issued with a multiannual validity
period
 Some private certificate are issued for a group of forest entities
meaning that all of them may not be fully audited. Some time,
the certificate does not show clearly wish entities of the group is
certified.
 Even if some private certification standards are
supposed to be legally above criteria, the certification
bodies and the procedures used need to be recognized.
Output
 List of private certified entities/titles
 List of checkers that are not always fulfilled when issuing a
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
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
private certificate
List of certificates that should be considered for analysis
Evaluation grid for certification scheme standard compliance
verification
Evaluation grid for audit methodology/process compliance
verification
Procedure proposal to implement the verification
 Cameroon did not yet analyse all certification schemes
but prepared the official process in a participative way
 The certification bodies have to submit their request
with the scheme standard and procedures they use
Chain of Custody Constraints
 Temporary procedures are in place to allow the
Minister in charge of Forest to issue Certificates of
Legality if all required document and verifications has
be done (Art 16 from Arrêté 0004/MINFOF Febr 7th
2013)
 The issuing of FLEGT License is not effective until the
Chain of custody, linked to the SIGIF, is operational
Next steps
 All requests of Certificate of Legality are analysed by a CNS
(National Monitoring Committee) once a year after
technical analysis in MINFOF and decision is validated by
the CCS (Joint Monitoring Committee)
 Cameroon recognised private legality/durability
certification schemes will be published yearly by the
Ministry with the evaluation grid
 In the mean time, all operator (holding private certificate
or not) could address their demand for Certificate of
Legality to the Minister
 The MINFOF will recognize, after checking, their compliance
with its indicators of the verification of legality.
 It should help the operator to provide evidence to their client
in Europe that have to deal with Due diligence.
Conclusions of the case study
 MINFOF consultant recommends to be really cautious
when issuing Certificate of Legality to entities holding
private certificates because of all the difference
identified
 The evaluation grids with all VPA criteria and the
question the evaluator should ask himself have to be
carefully used by the operator and by the service in
charge of controlling before advising the CNS and CCS
to issue a legality certificate