we are in hanover at the dome a text trade fair which features state of the art flooring concepts the exhibitors at the prove of ilion offer top quality products and claim that they meet strict environmental standards. one stand belongs to the bows of each company the wood for bows of each has products comes from the primeval forests of the amazon region. the company assures consumers who are concerned about the environment that they can buy its products with confidence. thank. those of it has earned a seal of approval from the forest stewardship council or if a see a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible management of the world's forests. but can logging in rain forests ever really be environmentally sustainable . trunk mel is a german government expert on the sourcing and purchasing of tropical timber. them of the most of all when german consumers buy tropical wood products that are certified by the f a c. they are making a contribution to the preservation of the rain forests and by supporting sound timber management policies mr as a friend of the us i guess i will say yes. but can buying products that have the f.s.e. seal really stop the excessive exploitation of primeval forest. the bows of each company harvest wood in the forests of peru to make flooring products . this is the order wrong go forest a pristine paradise in the amazon basin. we want to find out where bose a bitch and f.o.c. certified company harvest timber for its wood floors but you are right here in this local manager says the f.s.e. has imposed strict guidelines on harvesting. in an area the size of a football field only one tree may be removed in 20 years. this process is called selective cutting. this is the tree they're going to cut down today. yes. there you go throughout all that tree over there back there the one in the middle the white one. which is about. 20 meters high. is the border looming it's about 60 years old and has been producing seeds for 50 years and for the trunk is particularly straightforward and so we get a lot of what. selective cutting is considered a sustainable procedure the f.s.e. has given its seal of approval to the bows of each company for several years now. thanks. bowser bitch believes it's taking a responsible approach and the german government claims that the f. a c. is helping to preserve the rainforest for. but is that really true to find out more we travel to vancouver canada for an f. a c. conference. the organization's motto is forests for all for ever. be a 1st sea has invited 1st nations peoples who live in the rain forests of southwestern british columbia to perform as conserving forests is also about the estimated 100000000 people worldwide who call these areas home. workers from all sorts of conflicts kim carstensen is director general of the f.s.e. . and i'm so thrilled to be here with you. it's a conferences like this one to think future of the world's forests is largely determined the f.s.e. has members in 85 country. those who live in the forests members of the w w f and greenpeace and industry representatives all share responsibility for preserving our forests but while some want to protect nature others here want to cut down trees and f.m.c. promotional video and there is a tree. in the forest where the tree grounds. and the warning who came for land. there is the man who is next to the burning and to make sure a different story sounds when. we ask him carstensen what his organization stands for. f.s.a. is about responsible forest management that means that this is a forest management that ensures that the forces that now but there would also be the next year and the year after and for the next generation so if a city is very much about maintaining this carbon maintaining force quality and to make sure that the forest is that also for the next generations. to ensure this forest management policies are regularly reviewed f.s.e. conferences 3 groups are allowed to vote. for as dwellers. environmentalists and the timber industry green. as usual in politics much of the policy work is done in the lobby. indigenous forest inhabitants fight to preserve their habitat environmentalists aim to save primeval forest and industry wants to cut down as many trees as it can well keeping the f.s.e. seal of approval. image matters to multinational companies and f s c approval helps them look good. when it comes to forest certification f.o.c. is the most rigorous and accepted system on the market right now. which in theory all 3 groups have equal voting rights. but greenpeace international a founding member of the f.s.e. claims that environmentalists are being pushed around by the timber industry. and as we'll see later during this film shoot greenpeace took drastic action. at the conference in vancouver the f.s.e. claimed that under its leadership the world's forests are in good hands what is the german government say about that. you can doesn't it i'm consuming us alone should not have to bear all the responsibility for preserving the forests it's good for us we have to make sure that the companies that make wood and wood base products don't source wood from primeval forests in a non sustainable way that could destroy these vote would have been used 900 to go to school when the cost which often. we've come to london to meet one of the sharpest critics of the f.s.e. simon council was a co-founder of the organization but soon quit over policy disputes. he believes that the f.s.e. gives the timber companies too much power the timber industry itself was brought in as one of the key stakeholders of this body and and a part of the decision making process which we felt was strongly felt was flawed because the whole system was to be there to inspect and in a sense regulate the timber industry so it shouldn't really have been involved. council says the timber industry influence prevents the f.s.e. from making truly independent analyses we want to find out whether that's true. we return to timber land license or concession to the bows of each company in peru . how do they make sure that f.s.e. guidelines are followed. if this is all you would offer proof of origin. we use these markings to keep track of. this one from block 4. line 33. number 20. these markings are on every tree that ends up in the sawmill. wood from f.s.e. approved selective cutting is marked in red the f.s.e. calls this controlled wood. lumber from other suppliers that don't have the f. a c. seal is marked in blue. in theory the red and blue stacks should stay separated as they are here but sometimes they get mixed together by mistake. control board is one of the big controversies inside if it's always been a big controversy the good news i think is that we have to strengthen the control board standard and i think everybody agrees now that there is a level of control. but what exactly does level of control mean. we travel to the peruvian capital lima to meet an expert on the country's timber industry. who works for the environmental investigation agency or an advocacy group she's just finished a report that indicates that many timber companies falsified documents on the origins of trees as shown by government investigations. well there in these reports and also these are there for everybody just before the show the largest number so. that's ok because there's a lot does it for years right so that's that's not a surprise but the growth here is that they consistently keep showing large numbers of the new york papers. and then from day 1498 receive the use that where some both here at least 62 are you know documented by official i mean maybe moment when it might people from a kid i think the pilot and if you see something that's when we do. because we think we want to think that we do something and so i actually feel very frustrated . being able to believe or do the rufford's not in a country. the wood from the peruvian forests is transported to the river ports of call kulpa. the tree trunks are tied together there are hundreds probably thousands of logs here waiting to be shipped to lima for processing. a local boat captain has some disturbing news. i think is that. all these logs have been cut down illegally. everyone around here knows that. the culture is known as the hub of the illegal timber trade in peru is from here that illegally sourced logs gets shipped to timber companies and the e.i.a. says many will go to pose a. local insiders tell us where in the forest illegal logging is currently taking place. we planned to fly over those areas to capture aerial footage. we had toward the 1st location. after about an hour we see a recently logged area it's been clear cut. a blue tint stands in the corner of the bald patch in the middle of the jungle. a little while later we spot something that looks like a transport dock. tree trunks line the water's edge they were probably brought here from the forest. it doesn't seem as if the f.e.c. has managed to stop illegal logging here in peru. regarding both of it which we are aware of the. reports we are aware owners for both the us will throw 2 shots looked into some of these cases to our knowledge none of that material were sufficient certified to refer to our knowledge then maybe it's time issues with it but it's not officially certified therefore we're still interested in the company because if the company is involved in the ground if she had one way or the other then that's of course an issue for us. back in lima we've come to blows the beaches love processing complex this is where the wood is prepared for export. company c.e.o. drug oboes a bitch shows us prime lumber that's 100 percent f. a c. certified. although he also says logs do come in from none f.s.e. suppliers. so that means you never had problems with illegal drugs we've never heard of problems we problems even where we just try to yeah borders for me to keep. having to traverse change. wherever it has to be certified. so. you have to be able to prove it you. know i have to see this you know that charity i need works. so the f. a c. checks on the origin of the word but seems to ignore the fact that those rich has traded in timber that may have forged origin documents. so how credible is the f s c seal of approval we asked simon council in london so one would think if you're buying a product with an f.s.a. label that would be a quite simple message to the the wood inside this product. from an acceptable source that has been actually inspected by the audit is and guaranteed to be from an acceptable source if i see 100 percent in which the label product contains only f s e certified timber is actually just a very small part of the picture and the others are from what i call euphemistically controlled wood and controlled wood is that which. hasn't actually been controlled so instead of order it is on behalf of f.s.a. going into the forest to inspect the logging operations it's basically done from a desk somewhere else in born or in london ok so we have some examples of f.s.e. certified products let's have a look at these labels. this paper. 1st see paper from responsible sources but importantly you see this word mix on here this particular product itself may have no f s e certified material in it so in that sense this label is misleading to the consumer in living is believe that it is from responsible sources in may not be at all. so you can hear this product f.s.e. mix toilet paper. interesting here a box of matches. the mix again some of the are some of these officially certified from acceptable sources and some of them not impossible to know from the fs the label yeah so what do you have to seize director general have to say about the organization certification system there's no other system that works better than the system of certification there's no other system that is able to get together stakeholders and from an organization and social groups trade unions and the companies who are managing the forest to agree what do we mean by responsible forest management what are the standards that we want to set for how we define this no other system does that we in addition have quality control as we have ordered set happen of the companies such as. and if they see certification team is meeting at this hotel in boston part of their work today will involve checking to see whether timber companies active in the world's great forests are complying with the organisation's guidelines. we want to find out how the certification process works and file requests to accompany 10 different verifications. but the f.s.e. turns down our requests so we continue with our research. in the congo basin forest european timber companies have permits that allows them to cut down trees in given areas with f. a c. certification. in the capital brazzaville we're meeting a man who's been approving those permits for years. we've agreed to protect his identity. and we're not going to specifically name the companies that he's going to talk about. i want to withdraw the certificate from a certain company but when i met with the boss of that company he got so angry i left the hotel immediately. that night i feared for my life when i told my boss about the meeting he also got angry and said i was no longer to inspect that for his concession the timber companies pay money to keep their certification checkers are independent in theory but not really. because in practice we go to a site do a check and afterward nothing changes the companies go back to cutting down many more trees than they're allowed to do. in such a situation you see it was slow to see exists really just. i think we've seen a situation where it's absolutely possible to take action related to the certified operations in the competition one example would be that we disassociate it from interim or co 4 years ago and they are now back in again because they improve their performance and all of that and this is sort of in the past but we could disassociate and it didn't create problems of that nature i don't. we've come to the northern jungles of the republic of congo to meet some of the local residents. they belong to a group of semi-nomadic hunter gatherers called the bug. in this area or sell in some of her friends grow manioc in other crops from which they are now living. the congo based company a subsidiary of the swiss company interpol co has purchased a permit to cut down trees here. the backup people say it is making their lives difficult because company security guards have imposed strict controls on the amount of crops they can grow within each of those concessions. the forest concession covers an area of about 11000 square kilometers massive logs get transported out by trucks the company says it takes a selective approach to cutting down the trees. the post says this selective cutting complies with f. a c. guidelines. and the f s c says the logging roads don't harm the local environment. matthew hansen is a geographer at the university of maryland in the us he uses nasa satellite maps to keep track of how logging affects various regions around the world. well jim into. the republic of congo and all of a sudden you do see the logging road so we've seen these before. and so we can zoom into a sort of f.s.e. certified concession as evil concession the logging roads or beautifully maintained . gorgeous you can see the the extractions of the trees themselves off the side of the logging road so this is very. very clear that we're getting actually logging signal in parts of these concessions not everywhere the different colors represent the different years of the cut so this was early in the 2000 this was a couple years ago this was a little 2016 it is amazing because you're bringing this human footprint and when we're there we see the forest elephants you see the chimpanzees in the gorillas it's like you've opened up this. primeval forest and all of a sudden you can drive you know a 100 kilometers an hour straight down here to where nobody took you a few weeks to walk i think that there's a cascade of effects here that are changing what was a natural forest eco system with with low population levels of subsistence farmers and fisher people. and so now you have something pretty irreversible. develop the people tell us they're not even allowed to hunt anymore because the company has to protect the animals so it won't lose its efficacy label. denies these claims. that the bug guy used to kill monkeys in gazelles for food but now they say they often don't have enough to eat. today they're again preparing a meal from crushed because of the leaves. what. the work that this woman is upset about the situation she says people can't hunt and there are no jobs. there aren't any schools for the children and their prospects for the future are blue. she says the timber companies should leave the area. the bulk of people say if or won't let them earn a living we asked the company about this and it denied the accusations. the f.s.e. continues to defend the logging practices of the 2 largest timber companies now operating in congo if the interpol co subsidiary and c.i. b. . i have been through both cia through control i've seen the way that intrusions peoples are given separate school training because they're not going to be a part of the ordinary schools part of the earth or into the other groups of the population so i've seen all of these things and i certainly know that indigenous peoples on a big respect that they are given access to modern facilities that they never ever had before. this is part of the land covered by c.r.b. is permit your polka in northern congo. there do seem to be modern facilities here but these are mainly benefiting c.r.b. employees and less so the bulk of people who live in the huge forest concession when this buck a woman carries her child as she walks through the streets asking for money as others in her situation she seems in the period the bucha have lived in harmony with nature for several 1000 years and now their lives have been disrupted by timber companies that have been approved by the f.s.e. and the forests to see what they might become we travel to brazil where large tracts of ancient forest have been replaced by eucalyptus plantations. these students are studying whether such monoculture is meet the criteria for sustainable forest management. there professor claimants' leschetizky teaches political ecology at the university of minas gerais rice. whose plantation was one of the 1st monocultures in brazil to receive the f.s.e. seal of approval. he says that eucalyptus crops are popular because they're inexpensive to maintain and can be harvested in just 10 years. but the monoculture crops also dry out the soil and don't provide a habitat for wildlife. so how did this plantation qualify for f.s.e. approval. because on. this sort of land use was once classified as non-sustainable by environmentalist we even said it's extremely harmful pretty much the only thing worse than this type of monoculture would be to pave over the whole land. we asked matthew hansen to describe the spread of monocultures in brazil. so we zoom in to the area around you and up all this in the coast of this eco system that's called the boche atlantica you can see dramatic expansion when we see these blues these are new plantations and we see the pinks those are all the plantations that were cleared and regroup and f.s.e. certified monocultures i mean it's a contradiction in terms right if it literally was founded to combat mold a quote monoculture is now monocultures or certified this is this is a. it's a logical fallacy doesn't make sense. so but that i don't agree with that i do agree that you got you have to have your. your pole paper timber land uses somewhere because we all use these products and and. i don't think it's a hard argument to make that they that if this at this time in our history they