World Wide Fund (WWF) and IKEA, a Swedish furniture retailer, are now cooperated on a project to help a Vietnamese acacia plantation to achieve certification from the Forest Stewardship Council.
The proposal for the project was completed in July by WWF’s Vietnam Country Program in consultation with IKEA Vietnam. The two and half year project will be managed by WWF’s Vietnam Forest Program.
Initially, the project will work with an existing supplier in Quang Nam Province, the Forest Products Export Joint Stock Company of Quang Nam (Forexco) which is IKEA’s supplying furniture.
The project area will cover an acacia plantation of 4,100 ha, and IKEA has the goal of achieving certification of the Forest Stewardship Council by June 2008.
In order to reach this goal on time, a baseline assessment was conducted by WWF from 17 to 19 July 2006, at Forexco in Dien Ban District, Quang Nam. The purpose of the assessment was to review the current management of the company against the WWF Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) checklist, and assist them in developing a detailed action plan.
A full certification assessment is scheduled in March 2008, so the plantation must be prepared by that time. At this point, a draft of detailed activities to receive certification has been developed by the assessment team in consultation with Forexco, and the responsibilities of all parties involved in the project have also been identified and agreed upon.
