New FSC Standard under Public Consultation - November 21st, 2007

To support the implementation of its ‘Modular Approaches to Forest Certification Policy (FSC-POL-10-003)’, FSC is developing a Modular Approach Program (MAP). In order to provide a consistent accreditation framework to existing modular schemes, FSC is proposing the inclusion of specific requirements on the topic within its standard ‘Forest Management Evaluation with requirements for the FSC MAP (FSC-STD-20-007)’. FSC-STD-20-007, Version 2-2, Draft 1-0 is under consultation and FSC encourages interested stakeholders to submit their comments.

The FSC Principles and Criteria offer a comprehensive set of universally applicable standards for responsible forest management. These are globally recognized as the highest social and environmental standards in forestry. It can take a committed forest manager several dedicated years to comply with these demanding requirements. In countries rife with illegal logging and corruption, investing in long-term management plans are often perceived as high risk capital investments. This is particularly true for the global South where current management practices and governance may be weak.

Credible modular approaches can facilitate forest certification in these very situations. This has the potential make a major contribution to the promotion of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests. Essentially, the idea is that ‘full’ certification to the FSC Principles and Criteria can be broken down into a number of steps. Forest managers would aim to achieve these steps in a sequence over an agreed time frame and would receive some credit for achieving earlier steps. Companies could only take full credit when complying with the complete set of FSC Principles and Criteria.

The concept of modular verification, or stepwise certification, has been widely discussed for many years. In June 2005, FSC launched its policy on modular approaches to forest certification (FSC-POL-10-003 Modular Approaches to Forest Certification). Modular schemes must comply with a set of requirements specified in this policy in order to be recognized by FSC as credible.

In addition to the accreditation framework laid out in FSC-STD-20-007, FSC expects to develop agreements with different stepwise schemes in operation, business-to-business communications requirements and a central point of information on the topic. The complete framework is expected to be finalized by mid 2008.

For further information visit: http://www.fsc.org/en/work_in_progress/other_docs.

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