On 16 March 2010, NCIV, together with Greenpeace Netherlands, Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie), WWF Netherlands and ICCO (interchurch organisation for development cooperation) sent a formal note of objection against the final judgement of the Dutch Timber Procurement Assessment Committee (TPAC) that the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) is compliant with the criteria of the Dutch government’s timber procurement policy. These policies demand that by 2010, all timber used by Dutch government organisations comes from sustainable sources. TPAC assesses timber certification systems against the sustainability criteria of the Dutch Timber Procurement Assessment System and recommends approval by the Minister for Environment. Therefore, simultaneously, the Dutch Minister of Environment has been asked by the same organizations to hold her decision on MTCS until the objection procedure has been finalized. The objection note can lead to another judgement by TPAC.

The objection note and its supplement, submitted on 12 April 2010, states that MTCS has serious shortcomings and that TPAC did not properly assess the way MTCS operates. Some of the shortcomings are related to the rights of indigenous peoples in Malaysia. In October 2009, the network organisation of indigenous peoples in Malaysia (JOAS) wrote a letter to TPAC in which it expressed serious concerns about the violations of the rights of indigenous peoples in Malaysia and about the way TPAC was assessing MTCS. JOAS requested a thorough investigation on the compliance with the rights of indigenous peoples that are supposed to be safeguarded by the MTCS. Because TPAC did not reply to the request of JOAS, NCIV took the initiative in cooperation with ICCO and Greenpeace to investigate the reality of MTCS. This was done through a workshop and additional research in Malaysia, in which a large number of serious violations of the rights of indigenous peoples were reported.

Related info:

• For more info and documentation on TPAC and the objection note>>