Intact forest landscape (IFL) indicators – international generic indicators (IGIs)
FSC-STD-60-004 V1-1
Standard
Pasi Miettinen
March 2015
Addressing Motion 65 in National Forest Stewardship Standards and Interim National Standards.
The objective of the review is to collect the views of stakeholders on the suggested changes and IFL indicators that have been introduced to the IGIs developed for National Forest Stewardship Standards. In particular, the changes pertain to instructions for standard developers on Principle 9: high conservation values, and Annex H: Assessment of intact forest landscape core area, which contains information on conducting an assessment of IFLs at the national or eco-regional scale.
John Cathro, Canada
Eleven technical experts comprise the intact forest landscapes indicators/high conservation values technical working group (HCV-TWG):
- Cynthia Lu Chin, WWF, Malaysia
- Alain Marius Ngoya-Kessy, Republic of the Congo
- Brian Milakovsky, USA
- Pablo I. Ramirez de Arellano, ARAUCO, Chile
- Mikhail Karpachevskiy, Transparent World, Russia
- Chris Wedeles, National Standard Development Group, consultant, Canada
- Daniel Hall, Environmental Guide, USA
- Rosanne Van Schie, Forest Conservation and Economic Development Advisor Wolf Lake First Nation, Canada
- Kapupu Diwa, Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Congo Basin Forest, Democratic Republic of Congo
- Isabel Garcia Drigo, Lead Assessor Rainforest Alliance, Brazil
- Dian Intarini, Center of International Forestry Research, Indonesia
- Pamela Perreault, FSC Canada, Canada
- Vanessa Linforth, FSC IC, UK
- Anders Lindhe, HCV RN, Sweden
Timeline
First Consultation
CHAIN OF CUSTODY STANDARD REVISION (FSC-STD-40-004)
At the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC’s) 2011 General Assembly (GA) in Malaysia, the membership made a resounding call to simplify, clarify, and ensure the chain of custody standard is correctly implemented. FSC initiated a process to revise the chain of custody (COC) standard (FSC-STD-40-004), to put into action five of the motions approved at the GA.
WHO DOES THIS STANDARD AFFECT?
These revisions will affect more than 29,000 companies. All stakeholders are encouraged to provide feedback, but ultimately it will be the COC certificate holders and independent certification bodies that will be directly affected by the proposed amendments to the standard.
FURTHER PROCESS
A second public consultation round is planned for September – October 2015. We plan to submit the final revised draft standard to the FSC Board of Directors in March 2016.
WHAT HAS BEEN CHANGED?
The COC standard revision process resulted in six main amendments:
1. Fewer documents
The revised COC standard will consolidate existing advice notes and key standard interpretations to reduce the number of normative documents.
2. Clearer credit system requirements
The credit system section has been revised for clarity in direct response to Motion 46 from the 2011 General Assembly.
3. New cross-site credit system
A new section has been added following the Board of Directors’ evaluation of a cross-site pilot test involving 15 companies.
4. New transaction verification section
A new transaction verification section has been added to improve transaction transparency and strengthen trust between FSC certified businesses. As this is a major change in the FSC system, we are very open for your comments on this section.
5. A change in the classification of pre-consumer reclaimed paper
In direct response to Motion 38 from the 2011 General Assembly, pre-consumer reclaimed paper is now counted as creditable input towards the labeling threshold, equal to post-consumer reclaimed paper and FSC certified materials.
6. A change in the labeling threshold for FSC Recycled label
In direct response to calls for simplifying labeling requirements, it is proposed that the minimum FSC recycled label threshold is reduced from 85% to 70%.
The public consultation was open 19 December 2014 to 28 February 2015 and is now closed.