Fighting for forests

Our forest campaign has continued to make great strides during the year. We’re striving to transform timber markets in the UK to cut out the trade in illegal and unsustainable timber and make responsible forest trade the norm. Doing so will enable businesses to have a secure long-term supply, and will mean forests (and the people and wildlife that rely on them) are better able to thrive. We’ve had support from HRH The Prince of Wales, adventurer and natural history presenter Steve Backshall and WWF fellows Deborah Meaden and Kevin McCloud. More than 100,000 people have added their names to our campaign petition. And over 50 well-known businesses have committed publicly to source all their wood-based products legally and sustainably by 2020 and are backing our campaign. Business backing is vital: it’s giving our campaign greater influence among decision-makers. This boosts our chances of improving timber regulations to keep illegally-sourced wood products out of the EU and implementing measures to drive forward a market in sustainable timber.

Union for tuna

A new partnership we began in 2015 will improve the sustainability rating of about one third of all canned tuna sold in the UK. The partnership is with Thai Union Europe (the parent company of John West). It’s one of many breakthroughs in our efforts to gain commitments from companies to lead the sector in sourcing seafood responsibly and sustainably. Through our global ‘Seafood Charter’ framework we partner with companies to improve fisheries and farms so that they meet the high environmental standards of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). Thai Union Europe has committed to work with us to source 100% of its seafood sustainably and increase transparency in the sector on key issues such as legality and traceability.

Top marks

We also renewed our Seafood Charter partnership with M&S, which is progressing towards similar commitments on sustainability. As well as our project to improve the Orkney crab fishery with M&S, we’ve secured funding and started two projects with the retailer that aim to achieve MSC and ASC for farmed and wild-caught shrimp in one of our priority places, the South West Indian Ocean.

Timber sustainability scores

As part of our campaigning work to highlight the need for businesses to improve their use of sustainable timber and wood products, we published our first Timber Scorecard. In it, we analysed more than 100 businesses to see how transparent and informative they are about their use of sustainable timber. The construction industry and timber trade came out as leaders – Travis Perkins, Mace, Saint-Gobain and Carillion all scored our maximum ‘three trees’ rating. They’ve made public commitments and can show evidence of policies, as well as performance against them, to provide confidence they’re using sustainable timber as much as possible in their products and projects. Many businesses have a long way to go, but our scorecard has prompted some companies that had low scores to engage with us, because they wish to make improvements.

Tuna triumph

We were recognised by the Southwest Indian Ocean Tuna commission with an award in 2015 for our excellent technical support and leadership for sustainable fisheries in the region. This is a really positive reflection on our longstanding work to keep tuna populations healthy, and to support the livelihoods of people in the region.

Trade body backing

Our work to reach out to more businesses trading timber had a major boost when the body representing those most involved signed up to support our Forest Campaign. The 300-plus members of the Timber Trade Federation account for two thirds of the £8.9bn industry. They include sawmills, manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The federation has committed to engaging its membership to prioritise sourcing timber and timber products sustainably by 2020. This is a milestone for our Global Forest & Trade Network’s long-running engagement with the UK timber trade sector. We also welcomed the Builders Merchants Federation to our GFTN programme. In a first for both of us, we agreed be associate members with each other. So we’ll make the best use of our respective expertise and audiences to promote responsible forest trade throughout the merchant supply chain.

African agreement

WWF has helped to broker a groundbreaking agreement between Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda that they’ll work together to improve the management of the timber trade in the region. The commitment – called the Zanzibar Declaration – aims to combat the illegal trade in timber and other forest products in eastern and southern Africa, which is currently growing at an alarming rate and is a key driver of forest loss. Our recent Living Forests Report projects that as many as 12 million hectares of forest could be lost in the east Africa region between 2010 and 2030 unless there’s decisive intervention to prevent this.

Seafood success

This year we’ve raised greater awareness among fishing fleets and government fisheries departments about Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification – which assures consumers that seafood is sourced from sustainable, well-managed stocks. We’ve encouraged the key fisheries we’re targeting in the south-west Indian Ocean and the Pacific to undertake the MSC certification process. We’ve helped fisheries including those catching octopus, lobster and shrimp to develop ‘fisheries improvement projects’. This is a key first step towards increased sustainability and future certification.