Dear Richard Donovan and forestry colleagues, OHRA have for months claimed to have official FSC certification for Flor y Fauna plantations; eg in full page adverts in largest circultaion NL newspaper "De Telegraaf", and more recently WWF-NLhas joined in with their own publication with new FSC logo on front cover. Flor y Fauna have made same claims in court before a judge. Treemail has communicated its concerns on these matters and provided copies of such claims to Rainforest Alliance and FSC, and suggested to contact Professor R.A.A. Oldeman as witness of court hearing statement by Flor y Fauna's legal representative (court hearings are public in The Netherlands). Rainforest Alliance has not contacted Professor Oldeman on this matter. Following correspondence relevant to the issue from Treemail to Richard Donovan, Director Smartwood programme of Rainforest Alliance, in response to a 9 page fax to our office of end of January 1996, has remained unanswered. Now that Rainforest Alliance has decided to take this matter to internet discussion lists, perhaps Richard Donovan would be inclined to redress this situation. This may be opportune given that his internet release states "Smart Wood is now working to verify Flor y Fauna's advertising claims with respect to FSC and/or Smart Wood. If deliberately misleading claims have been made by others, then appropriate actions will be taken", and given the recent FSC statement to the effect that "The expression "FSC-certified" is incorrect. Any claims that plantations have been in any way "FSC-certified" are doubly incorrect". Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:16:24 To: smartwood@igc.apc.org From: Paul Romeijn <treemail@vr.nl> Subject: Opportunities missed again Cc: fsc@laneta.apc.org Dear Richard, Please check your mail from me to you of 7 January 1996. You will find copy of letter PR to RD on subject opportunities missed, which was also mailed to FSCs TS. Opening sentence to RD reads: I regret to inform you that your interventions have not succeeded in preventing F&F stating in court on 28 December 1995 that F&F plantations have been oficially certified by the FSC ... This letter is on the listing of communications in RDs letter to all of December 1996, which according to RD should have date 28 January 1996, and which was actually faxed to our office on 30 January 1996. In same communication RD states on last page: We are not aware that FyF has ever made such a claim. This thread leads to RD informing PR on 5 February 1996 that: "I will now be following up on it." This here appears one entire month lost in clarifying the situation. Please clarify to all the discrepancy between above statements. CC: BC, TS, JC [end of letter] NB: Above reference to letter to "all" from RD, according to its header, was mailed to: Bruce Cabarly, FSC Board of Directors Tim Synnott, FSC Executive Ditector with cc: Julio Centeno Arnold Von Krefeld, WWF/Netherlands Paul Romeijn Joop van Veen & Jan Van Rossum, Van Rossum Van Veen Consultants
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