Through a series of discussions with members, stakeholders, and certificate holders and a literature review of relevant studies and supporting documents, it was found that including forestry contractors in the certification system would help increase the number of smallholders in the FSC system and total forest area coverage. A preliminary analysis led to two major findings.
1. Regardless of the size of the forest, the forest owner is essentially required to follow the same set of requirements from the FSC Principles and Criteria, and the same administrative duties in implementing responsible forestry and assessing the environmental impacts of their forestry operations.
2. By including contractor certification within the existing normative framework, the operators actually working in the certified forest management units would be the source of information for conformance verification.
FSC plans to conduct several trials on contractor certification in various locations in 2018. The aim of the trials is to produce locally and regionally applicable models for the introduction of contractors into the FSC system. The FSC New Approaches priority project will be acting as the global lead for testing and will provide interested national and regional offices, stakeholders, members, and certificate holders with necessary information on how to proceed with further development.
Contact
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the concept of forestry contractor certification, please contact Lauri Ilola at l.Ilola@fi.fsc.org. For questions about the smallholder implementation project team’s activities related to the normative framework, please contact team lead, Vera Santos at v.santos@fsc.org.