Treemail informs following non-confidential letter received from Professor R.A.A. Oldeman who adresses Dr. Richard Donovan with date March 15, 1996: Dear Sir - I am in no material way attached to any interested party in the Flor y Fauna controversy. I know my colleague Prof. Centeno since the mid-eighties when we were in the same meeting of IUCN in Merida. We shared our convictions about the issue, then hot, of the founding of ITTO. My first impression then was that of a capable, honest, integer and independant man, and I still hold this view of Prof. Centeno. I know Ir (this is "ingenieur", not "junior") Romeijn as one of my ex-students, highly intelligent, self-reliant and realistic, and I knew him later for having sat together on the board of two Foundations I chaired, where he proved to be independant, integer and capable. He is particularly clever in spotting concealed flaws in apparently innocent business, and I knew since long that he had spotted such flaws as a common denominator of many (not all) Dutch-based teak planting ventures in the tropics and had thoroughly documented this. I know Mr. Van Weezendonk for having sat together on the board of a non-profit foundation. My first impression again was that of integrity, and I have never been disappointed in this aspect since I know him, some year and a half now. I am myself the only remaining University professor in forestry in the Netherlands (chair of Silviculture & Forest Ecology, Wageningen Agricultural University). My motives in all forestry issues are to keep our beautiful profession clean, efficient and visionary. Otherwise I would not have the right to teach it to a young generation we should want to be better than ours. When Dutch TV asked me about teak plantations I told them that I was not well informed on this issue. I could of course provide information on teak silviculture in general, but not on the actual situation. However, I added, there was another person I knew who was particularly well informed and honest. I do not know why they phoned me on this issue. I am often consulted by the media on subjects concerning trees, forests and/or forestry. However, I am convinced that this phone call made by NOVA rested on some highly significant documentation they had obtained. NOVA has a reputation to uphold. Since then I have been kept informed (perhaps like you) by Treemail and personally by its director. Because the case brought to Justice in The Hague between Christmas 1995 and the New Year seemed significant to us, and because we knew Mr. Van Weezendonk, my wife and I attended the court session. I was announced by the lawyer of Mr. Van Weezendonk as an expert who might be consulted by the court. I have not opposed this statement because as a professor I am an expert paid by the public at large to be consulted by representatives of the public at large, like you. My wife and I indeed heard the lawyer of the teak planting consortium talk of certification by the famous Forest Stewardship Council (or words to that effect). I have wondered why this lawyer made such a statement, particularly because it had been brought to my attention a day or so earlier what FSC was and did exactly, i.e. that this Council does not certify or label forests, plantations or wood itself. This discrepancy is the cause that I remember the statement being made. In January or February (I write to you without consulting my papers) I received the report on Flora y Fauna made by a Dutch bailiff in December of 1993, the pleading notes based on the bailiff's report made by a FyF lawyer against Van Weezendonk also in December 1993, and a statement signed by another of my ex-students to the effect that the FyF claims were not impossible. I nailed these documents, particularly the bailiffs report and the lawyers notes, to the stable doors with nails of their own making. I was indeed very angry that such documents which are demonstrably based on guesses more than other things, could be admitted in a Dutch Court of Law. I was still angrier when I thought about the discredit this would heap on our poor profession, on nature conservation organisations, on two Dutch Ministries, on certifiers in general, on the nice country of Costa Rica and even on the teak-planting parties themselves. In final analysis, the discredit would arrive where it should never arrive, i.e. at the idea of conserving tropical rain forests and use them with respect, hence wisely. I do hope, Dr. Donovan, that your Alliance may adhere strictly to truth without even one opportunistic thought, and so be stronger than all silences, contorsions, half truths and perhaps deceit that has been woven as a tight smothering blanket around these plantation ventures. However, I recently read "Playing God in Yellowstone". I hope you read it too. Sincerely yours, Prof.Dr.Ir. Roelof A.A. Oldeman Chair of Silviculture and Forest Ecology Department of Ecological Agriculture Haarweg 333 6709 RZ WAGENINGEN (The Netherlands) phone * 31 317 48 44 25 (secretary 48 35 22) fax * 31 317 48 49 95 E-mail roelof.oldeman@users.eco.wau.nl
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