Rougier awarded Fsc certification

Rougier (www.rougier.fr), the specialist in African tropical timber, with two million hectares of forests under management in Cameroon, Gabon and Congo, today announced that it has been awarded Forest Stewardship Council (Fsc™) Certification for its chain of custody and the grand majority of the forests managed by its subsidiary Rougier Gabon.
Rougier Gabon has been awarded the Fsc™ certificate for three of its forest concessions under sustainable management: Haut-Abanga, Ogooué-Ivindo and Léké (certification attributed to Cifho, a subsidiary of Rouger). This represents a simultaneous certification of 688,262 hectares of forest. This certification is a crucial milestone for Rougier because Fsc certification is internationally recognised by the major environmental Ngos. It certifies the responsible forest management of the concessions allocated to the company in three main areas: optimisation and preservation of resources: analysis of the distribution and evolution of available resources over the long term; protection of biodiversity (flora and fauna): evaluation of the impact of hunting and poaching, and the development and implementation of protective measures; socio-economic development: contribution to the social development of indigenous people and resident forestry workers.
Francis Rougier, President of the management board, says: “In keeping with our commitment to managing and protecting tropical forests, everyone at Rougier has been working hard for over a decade to achieve Fsc certification. Today we have taken an important step towards our ultimate objective: 100 percent certification for all our forests, thereby meeting a double environmental and market challenge”.