The second dialogues held on 22, 23 and 24 September 2020 served as an opportunity for members to discuss the second Global Strategy draft and discuss ideas to further advance FSC’s mission.
In this section you will find the latest materials and gathered insights from the second FSC Global Strategy Dialogues. This includes a summary report as well as presentations, recordings of the sessions, all the chat history and more. This information will allow you to stay up to date in case you were not able to attend all sessions or if you would like to get more information regarding the main topics being discussed.
This dialogue provided members and stakeholders with a presentation of the Green Paper “Conversion and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) 1994 Cut-Off Date & Beyond”, produced by Richard Donovan and an update on the Conversion Policy Working Group (WG) process with WG members Dr. Marcus Colchester and Annika Terrana.
This is the first of a series of four Conversion Dialogues that seek to:
Background
FSC requested Richard Donovan to develop a Green Paper on the topics of conversion, deforestation and related key issues within the FSC system. Richard examined documents and emails related to the topic and interviewed over 60 individuals over an eight-week period who have been most active on the topic of conversion and deforestation, restoration and social, economic and environmental implications thereof in the FSC system.
This Green Paper is intended to complement the ongoing work in the revision of the Conversion Policy (asked for in the approved Motion 7/2017) by providing background and reference material for wider discussions among FSC members and stakeholders.
The document can be downloaded below in English and in Spanish.
Agenda
In this session, members had the opportunity to start the discussion with the motion’s proposers and members. The motions for this discussion were:
When? Tuesday, March 07, 2023, 15:00-16:30 CET
Register here: https://bit.ly/3jOtLqphttps://bit.ly/3jOtLqp
This webinar will spotlight women leaders in the forest and environmental sectors, both within FSC and externally. Speakers will share their experience and points of view of leadership while relating this year’s theme of innovation and technology for gender equality to FSC’s work in forests.
FSC has prioritized diversity and gender equality in the Global Strategy 2021-2026, and this webinar follows FSC’s recent milestones, including the release of the Strategic Framework on Diversity and Gender at the General Assembly in October 2022.
We look forward to a session that is sure to be inspiring and compelling for all members, not only women.
Agenda items for discussion:
1. The FSC Global Strategy and its effect on boreal forests
The second draft of the Global Strategy is now out for consultation. If you go to the consultation platform, you will find some great material developed together with the Board Strategic Planning Committee (BSPC). This includes a short video with BSPC Chair, Al Thorne, explaining some of the thinking that’s gone into the second draft and a new document that explains some of the main changes from draft 1 to draft 2 and why they were made.
The discussion was concentrated on the effect of the Global Strategy for Boreal forests and allow members to discuss their inputs in the consultation process.
2. FSC and High-value forests
With the upcoming FSC General Assembly next year, we discussed how FSC addresses certification of high-value forests, such as Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs). As preparation for this discussion, we have taken steps to develop a research knowledge base and partnership. We seek the research basis for defining a way forward, allowing FSC to offer fact-based and pro-active nature-based solutions that respect the necessary protection of high-value forests in the landscape, and identify where and how FSC certified management of these forests and landscapes can be done in a responsible way, including the use of existing tools like certification of Ecosystem Services or Non-Timber Forest Products.
In this meeting, we updated members and stakeholders on plans and activities developed for high-value forests including IFLs, and sought feedback to these.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Gemma Boetekees at g.boetekees@fsc.org
In this event we also had the motions discussion, where the proposers provided information on their motions, members were able to ask questions or comment on the motion and had a lively debate with the motion proposers.
The motions for discussion were:
Policy Motion 56/2021
Induction of Social Expert in CB
Policy Motion 24/2020
FSC's advocacy to promote forest management certification in tropical protected areas
Policy Motion 25/2020
Creating and implementing a mechanism to promote the establishment of small community forest enterprises
The meeting took place via Zoom.
You can find the recordings here:
In English.
In Spanish.
In French.
As well as the presentations and meeting documents below.
The Policy and Standards Committee acts on behalf of the Board of Directors (BoD) with respect to technical matters related to the development or revision of FSC Policies, Standards, Procedures and other FSC normative documents.
We are seeking FSC chamber members and technical experts with knowledge and experience in forest management and controlled wood for the working group tasked with revising the FSC Controlled Wood Standard for Forest Management Enterprises. The call for applications will be open until 09 February 2020.
The report on the revision of the FSC Principles and Criteria (Version 5-2) is now available for a 50-day public consultation. The main proposal is that FSC should wait until 2023 to revise its Principles and Criteria because the transition of all FSC national standards to the latest Principles and Criteria (Version 5-2) is still ongoing.
In mid-February 2016, the working group tasked to address Motion 12 of the 2014 Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) General Assembly (GA), held its second meeting in Bonn Germany. The working group, which is currently drafting a policy proposal, aims to consult FSC members about the details in April 2016.
The FSC Remedy Framework is now open for public consultation, until 10 May 2022. FSC looks forward to receiving inputs and suggestions from its stakeholders on ways to improve the efficacy of the FSC Remedy Framework. FSC invites all its stakeholders to participate in this consultation process, by clicking here.
EU decision-makers have reached an historic agreement by approving the landmark anti-Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The EUDR will prohibit placing products linked to deforestation and forest degradation on the EU market.
The Governance Review Working Group, formed to deliver on Motion 42 (2014), has developed governance reform options based on input from members and from experts which we now wish to consult members on. This consultation will run from 10 July to 10 August 2017 through an online platform.
The final version of the FSC Implementation Plan is now available online. This represents a critical step in building the structures and actions to create the changes we want to make together.
FSC launches the public consultation on the draft Advice Note for Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and in Initial Contact (IPVIIC) in Peru. The consultation seeks feedback on specific questions related to the draft and is open to all interested stakeholders.
FSC is presenting a new piece of research intended to inform the process to create a fair and feasible FSC Remedy Framework. Entitled “A study on the economics of remedy in the context of forest conversion,” this piece of work was completed by an independent consulting agency.
Publication date: 1 February 2023
Effective date: 1 July 2023
End of transition period: 31 December 2024
The social impacts of forest management mean that forest management is a social as a well as a technical activity. It is not possible to involve all stakeholders in every forest evaluation. It is therefore essential that forest certification and its results should be open to public scrutiny. This is the only way to demonstrate to all interested or affected parties that the certification decisions are justified and acceptable. It is a basic requirement of the FSC scheme that certification bodies make a summary report of each certified forest operation publicly available.
Publication date: 1 February 2023
Effective date: 1 July 2023
End of transition period: 31 December 2024
The following requirements aim to ensure that the certification body decision making entity has sufficient information on which to base its decisions with respect to conformity with FSC forest stewardship standards, and to help FSC ensure that there is consistency in decision making between different certification bodies.
This document provides FSC’s formal interpretation of requirements included in FSC-STD-20-007. An updated version was published on 1 August 2024.