Fairwild
| International Organisation | |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Offices in Switzerland and Cambridge, UK |
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Key people
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| Website | www.fairwild.org |
The FairWild Foundation aims to provide a global framework for implementing a sustainable and fair trading system for wild-collected plant ingredients and their products. It was established in 2008 in response to the major ecological and social challenges created by the ever increasing demand for wild plant ingredients for use in food, cosmetics, well-being and medicinal products. Unsustainable harvesting of potentially vulnerable plant species can endanger local ecosystems as well as the livelihoods of the collectors who often belong to the poorest social groups in the countries of origin.
The FairWild Foundation promotes the FairWild Standard and FairWild Certification system for the sustainable management and collection of wild plants. This allows consumers to know they are supporting ethical fair trading standards and for trading benefits to be felt by the local communities harvesting the plants.
Accountability and fair trade are becoming increasingly important criteria in the global market place. Several product certification and labeling schemes currently exist, but are generally not appropriate for wild plant products. The FairWild Foundation was therefore founded in 2008 and is responsible for the quality and implementation of a unified standard and certification system that includes ecological as well as social aspects.
The FairWild Standard has closed a gap that had not been covered by other standards and certification systems. Most Fair trade certification schemes focus on cultivated plants; organic and related certification systems, even if applicable to wild collected species, do not include many criteria that are important for wild collection situations, especially concerning ecological sustainability requirements as resource assessment and determination of a sustainable yield.
The FairWild Standard allows for traceability and transparency, as well as improving product safety. To ensure sustainability in the wild collection system, the International Standard for Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP) was developed between 2001 and 2006, supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), TRAFFIC, WWF, and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
The development of the Fair Trade standard was initiated by SIPPO (the Swiss Import Promotion Programme) in cooperation with Forum Essenzia e.V and IMO (Institute for Marketecology). This was then merged with ISSC-MAP to form the FairWild Standard version 1.0 in 2008 to provide all round implementation of ecological, social and economical aspects.
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