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Ms. Zandra Martinez
Chairperson
FSC international
Adenauerallee 134
53113 Bonn
Germany

Open Letter on Genetically Modified Eucalyptus

Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union (SCCCU) is a federation of 34 Seikatsu Club co-operatives (with a total of approximately 420,000 members) active in prefectures from Hokkaido to Hyogo. Under the slogan of “Sustainable People, Seikatsu Club” SCCCU seeks to maximize safety, health and the environment at every stage from production to consumption and disposal. In 2020, we formulated the Seikatsu Club 2030 Action Declaration consisting of priority goals that should be further promoted in the future and stipulated as one of the priority goals "we will take action for the environmental conservation of the sea and land, and measures against climate change to maintain the earth's ecosystem." To work toward the achievement of this goal, we have been implementing a switch to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper for our catalogues. We began using FSC-certified paper for our catalogs and switched to FSC-certified paper for postbox flyers in January 2021.

We are also opposed to genetic modification technology from the standpoint of food safety and biodiversity, and our basic stance is not to accept genetically modified (GM) materials as a raw ingredients for the consumer materials we handle.

SCCCU was very concerned about a motion to the FSC General Assembly in October to allow GM eucalyptus to be accepted under FSC certification. This is because it is possible that the impact of GM eucalyptus on biodiversity and the livelihoods of indigenous people living in forests could be extremely serious, and if FSC certification were to be accepted, it would be a major contradiction for us, who have been promoting the switch to FSC-certified paper to conserve biodiversity.

In this context, I heartily welcome the rejection of the motion at the FSC General Assembly. We very much hope, for the conservation of biodiversity, that the Council will continue to maintain this attitude of not recognizing GM trees under FSC certification.