Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an ENGO based in Oaxaca, Mexico that was established in 1993 with an international membership from environmental groups (World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, Rainforest Alliance to name a few), forestry companies (such as AssiDoman in Sweden), forestry professionals and others.

The goal of the FSC is to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests by establishing a worldwide standard of recognized and respected Principles of Forest Stewardship. Their strategy is to create market demand for their products by forming buyers’ groups (wholesale) in key consuming markets who make a commitment to only purchase timber products that bear the FSC logo. This mark indicates that the FSC has verified that the wood has been harvested from forests that it deems as sustainably managed.

The FSC does not actually certify forests, but rather evaluates and accredits independent certifiers. These certifiers then certify woodland operations based on the 10 FSC principles and criteria which are:

  1. Compliance with Laws and FSC Principles
  2. Tenure and Use Rights and Responsibilities
  3. Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
  4. Community Relations and Worker’s Rights
  5. Benefits From the Forest
  6. Environmental Impact
  7. Management Plan
  8. Monitoring and Assessment
  9. Maintenance of High Conservation Value Forests
  10. Plantations

In order to adapt the criteria to local circumstances, FSC encourages local chapters to develop regional standards that define the performance criteria for the principles in their area. Each regional standard must be approved the FSC International, and to date only a few regional FSC programs have been approved. However, in the absence of an approved regional standard, certifiers are still able to proceed to certify organizations based upon the international principles and developing checklists specific to the region of the operation they are evaluating. In British Columbia, the first BC FSC regional standard is expected sometime in 2003.

April 2002