This is your go-to space for all editions of the FSC General Assembly Members Bulletin. Here, you will find key updates, deadlines, resources, and stories curated to help you stay informed and engaged in the lead-up to the FSC General Assembly 2025. Each issue highlights important developments, motions, and opportunities for participation—ensuring you are well prepared to shape the future of FSC.
The importance of forest stewardship is more apparent than ever as we face global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequities. The FSC Global Strategy 2021-2026 focuses on growing our reach by demonstrating the value and benefits of forest stewardship in combatting these challenges and achieving our 2050 vision of resilient forests sustaining life on earth.
The FSC Global Membership Meeting 2020 presented a general overview and highlights of the achievements in 2020, and general priorities and key issues for 2021.
In order to accommodate several time zones and enable the participation of our members from all regions, the session was held in the morning and repeated in the afternoon. Both sessions ran live and contained the same discussions.
Over 400 registered participants from around the world joined the presentations and subsequent discussions. You can find the meeting recordings and presentations below.
During this session, we will present the motion submission schedule and we will have a demo on how to submit a motion through the FSC Motions platform.
The BoD Elections 2023 have been announced. Each FSC member was invited to vote for six candidates to join the FSC International Board of Directors. View the results here.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is delighted to invite you to join its High-Level Conference: Launching FSC’s Global Strategy 2021-2026 – Demonstrating the Value and Benefits of Forest Stewardship, which will take place on 9 December, 2020.
The new round of transaction verification for okoume will cover FSC claims made between 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019. The deadline for certificate holders to submit requested transaction verification data is 29 September 2020.
FSC is extending a call for applications until 14 April 2020. We are still seeking candidates for a technical working group to develop a risk-based approaches (RBA) assurance system for forest management certification. They will also finalize the revision of the RBA procedure and guideline.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) announces the withdrawal of the remaining forest management certificates in Russia by the respective certification bodies. This is due to the decision by Assurance Services International (ASI) to terminate its FSC assurance activities in Russia.
In June 2022, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Assurance Services International (ASI) launched the third transaction verification (TV) loop on bamboo supply chains to proactively find out if there are any integrity risks that need to be addressed.
FSC digital audit reports for forest management are now ready for auditors around the globe to start training on the use of them. Use of the system will become mandatory for all forest management audits conducted from January 2021 onwards.
The first draft of the standard FSC-STD-60-004a FSC International Generic Indicators for the use of Highly Hazardous Pesticides is now available for public consultation until 01 April 2020 and can be accessed here. We invite all stakeholders to provide feedback.
In 2020, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) commissioned SmartCert, an independent assessor, to assess allegations made by Mighty Earth against the activities of Olam Palm Gabon – a joint venture of Olam Group and the government of Gabon.
The present document contains certification requirements for certifying forest operations in Guyana, developed in accordance with FSC’s normative document for the development Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until revised, replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard or withdrawn
The present document contains certification requirements for small and low intensity managed forest operations in Honduras, developed in accordance with FSC's normative document for the development and maintenance of Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard.
The purpose of this guidance document is to facilitate the inclusion of requirements on gender equality in FSC national forest stewardship standards (NFSS) and by so doing, fully address criterion 2.2. It serves to aid standards developers, FSC staff, and other bodies involved in developing and/or approving NFSS, in learning more about the gender equality provisions of the new P&C V5-2 and the IGIs.
The present document contains certification requirements for certifying forest operations in Lao People’s Democratic Republic, developed in accordance with FSC’s normative document for the development Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until revised, replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard or withdrawn.
The present document contains certification requirements for small and low intensity forest (SLIMF) operations in Nicaragua, developed in accordance with FSC's normative document for the development and maintenance of Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard.
Completed NRA for Uruguay.This document is an assessment of the risk of sourcing material from unacceptable sources in a given country, developed according to FSC-PRO-60-002 V3-0 EN The Development and Approval of FSC National Risk Assessments.This risk assessment shall be used when implementing FSC-STD-40-005 V3-1 EN Requirements for Sourcing FSC Controlled Wood. ++ Click here to submit a change request for this FSC risk assessment ++
The present document contains certification requirements for certifying forest operations in Austria, developed in accordance with FSC's normative document for the development and maintenance of FSC Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of FSC Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until replaced by a new FSC Forest Stewardship Standard.
The present document contains certification requirements for certifying forest operations in Belgium, developed in accordance with FSC's normative document for the development and maintenance of Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard.
The present document contains certification requirements for certifying forest operations in Cuba, developed in accordance with FSC's normative document for the development and maintenance of Forest Stewardship Standards. Revisions of Forest Stewardship Standards are ongoing, and all existing standards will be transferred to the revised Principles & Criteria version 5-2. All standards are valid until replaced by a new Forest Stewardship Standard.