2005/July/22/God in Teakland
From Timber Investments Wiki
Below, is a translation of an email send on July 22 2005 by Ebe Huizinga of Flor y Fauna to Popko van der Molen of Sicirec.
[edit] Translation of the original mail by Ebe Huizinga
| Subject: | "God in Teak country" |
|---|---|
| Date: | Fri, July 22, 2005 |
| From: | Ebe Huizinga <e.huizinga1@chello.nl> |
| To: | Popko P. van der Molen <popko@sicirec.org> |
Dear mister Van der Molen,
Now that you've also involved EffecTeak in your smear-campaign. you've crossed the line.[1]
Up till now, your mud swinging has always been accepted with a shrug of the shoulders because your little company Sicirec stands for nothing. But, the regardless destruction of new impulses in the teak branch proofs once again proves your absolute lack of knowledge about the product. On top of that, your knowledge of forestry is measured by the absolute point zero of your employee Edwin Kielman. This "GOD" in the teak field dismisses the knowledge of our 14 professional forestry experts by criticizing their monitoring report while these are people who are working daily in teak plantations according to strict criteria.[2] A separate letter will follow shortly in which we will set this mister Kielman and you personally responsible for millions Euros of damage to our companies.[3]
I hereby demand that you seize your exertions with EffecTeak per direct [1] and that you remove all your unjustified attacks on Flor y Fauna S.A. from the Internet per direct.[4] Your so-called valuation table of Flor y Fauna will also immediately have to be suspended because neither you or your employee are capable of executing this in an honest and trustworthy fashion.[5] Your knowledge from a distance and based on hearsay doesn't give you the right to review us, neither negatively or positively. Although your judgement is based on nothing [6], you do present yourself on the Internet as the consumer guide of teak country. Of course, nothing is farther away from the truth.
Translated where necessary, a letter with all the complaints against you will also be send to the A.F.M. authorities, DNB, to your banks in the Netherlands and Costa Rica, to the FSC headquarters and the FSC office in the Netherlands, to FIOD in the Netherlands, to as many Sicirec shareholders as possible, to all the companies in the teak branch about which you judge, to all newspapers and other media, enz., enz.[7]
If you hone my summation, with the help of intermediaries, we will have to find a way out for the investors which originally invested at Flor y Fauna. These people have been lured under your umbrella under false pretenses and with impossible advantages. It cannot be so that our people become the victim of your bartering.[8]
Meanwhile, I sign,
Ebe Huizinga
[edit] Reply by Sicirec
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 We try to publish and update as much relevant information on our website about the hardwood plantation companies that we follow. You complain about the information which we published about the EffecTeak provider. At the moment of your writing, this information was very sparse and devoid of sylvicultural matter. De most important new information for investors which was mentioned on the page about EffecTeak at that moment was the involvement of the Huizinga family, which could not be deduced from the folios and website of EffecTeak itself. That's why we deemed this news worthy. You sweep this under the namer smear-campaign. We conclude from this that you find it burdensome that the name Huizinga is connected to EffecTeak. We're convinced that the investors have the right to right to know about this connection.
- ↑ We weren't aware that Flor y Fauna and/or related companies such as EffecTeak, Expomaderas, Teca Vital and Next Generation Teak had so many professional forestry engineers at their disposal. We assume that this concerns lower, local educations and not expensive forestry engineers at the level of Wageningen or Velp. This would constitute a very heavy overhead for a plantation of limited size. Apart from the qualities and the different levels of education and experience of forestry specialists at both sides, the emphasis for us is on gathering as much relevant information for our investors as possible. Our internal forestry engineer, Edwin Kielman, has sufficient theoretical and practical forestry skills to be able to understand such information, and also to ask targeted questions which are important to our investors. What is important here is not whether he is more or less knowledgeable than the forestry engineers of Flor y Fauna etc. It's only about being able to maintain an open dialog with the forestry engineers from your side so that the information which we pass on to our investors is as correct and up-to-date as possible. Besides, mister Kielman has never criticized the reports of your forestry specialists, let alone accuse them of incompetence. He has only placed question marks after some data and commented on the image that emerges from the numbers with the intent to receive a response about that policy along with more information.
- ↑ It is our opinion that it's more likely that there will be claims concerning revenues which, unjustly, haven't been paid to the investors. We are are often approached by Sicirec - Flor y Fauna investors with threats that steps against Sicirec are considered if Sicirec won't be more forceful to force Flor y Fauna to pay out, in court if necessary.
- ↑ At all times, we're open to remarks concerning the texts on our website and to useful suggestions. We will gladly correct inaccuracies. Before doing so, however, we would like to see a factual response to the (supposed) inaccuracies concerned, so that we'll be able to assay (and, where possible, improve) the factuality of our information point by point.
- ↑ What was said above, is as much true for the rating of Flor y Fauna by Sicirec. We'd love to send the details of Flor y Fauna's rating, so that we can discuss, item by item, which points have been wrongly assigned. Because of a relative lack of information, a number of subscores end up relatively low. Whenever certain information is lacking, the particular score is rounded down to remain at the safe side. Thus, in principle, by supplying more relevant information from within the plantation company, the rating subscores on many points can be improved.
- ↑ Our opinion about Flor y Fauna and the Huizinga family is based on a relationship of more than 10 years, which time we have visited the plantation every couple of years, have studied many external and also many internal reports and have extensively familiarized ourself with the manner of managing and communicating of the Huizinga family. On top of that, we have, during that time, increasingly been in contact with OHRA and other parties involved with Flor y Fauna. Regretfully, these experiences have led to a continuously eroding of trust and a gradually decreasing quality rating on most parts, one of which is the quality of the management.
- ↑ We are a warm proponent of as much transparency as possible and will join this initiative where possible.
- ↑ We still see concrete and practical possibilities to get out of this management impasse and would love to exchange further thoughts about the propositions and direction of a solution in the interest of the investors and all the other Flor y Fauna stakeholders. These propositions have recently been communicated to Flor y Fauna's attorney, Mr. van Schoonhoven, and to your sales manager, mister Schraa.
(Chairman R.v.B. Sicirec S.A.)
