The Forest Stewardship Council has ten Principles of Forest Stewardship. These Principles and associated Criteria form the basis for all FSC forest management standards. Click below for information on each Principle, or click here for a printable version.

Principles & Criteria and FSC Standards: How are they related?

The Principles & Criteria form the basic structure for all FSC forest stewardship standards. Before they can be used at a local forest level, the P&C need to be interpreted for the local conditions. This is done through the development of a national or sub-national forest stewardship standard.

National and sub-national FSC groups can develop the P&C into detailed locally-applicable forest stewardship standards. This is done through the addition of local evaluation indicators and verifiers. Additional criteria may be added into the standard, but each standard must contain all the FSC Principles & Criteria.

Once approved by FSC, these national and sub-national standards are used by certification bodies to evaluate forest management in these countries or regions. This ensures that local indicators and verifiers are used to evaluate and certify forests.

In areas where national or sub-national standards have not yet been developed, certification bodies can adapt their FSC-approved generic standard to local conditions. These standards are called "locally-adapted generic standards". They are only used for certification if there is no FSC-endorsed national or sub-national standard.

All FSC-certified forests must meet the requirements of the national or sub-national standard, or the locally-adapted generic standard. Major failure to meet one or more of the Principles will normally disqualify the candidate from certification, or lead to de-certification.

For more information, refer to the FSC Accreditation Standards, available in the Document Center.

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