The FSC Family Forests Alliance, a national partnership of individuals and organizations committed to promoting responsible forest stewardship, has released a report on the results of the recent field testing of proposed revisions to group certification and the family forest standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The revisions include updates on policies for implementation and evaluation for group certificate holders and special provisions for family forestlands.
"The report outlines the results of the field testing, the potential impacts of the family forest standard and the changes that are in development," says Kate Albert Read, Secretariat for the Alliance and Director of Harvest Certification and Research for the Trust to Conserve Northeast Forestlands.
The FSC's Family Forest specific standard is the result of 2 years of work by the Family Forest Working Group and several other technical groups. These groups have helped identify the challenges facing family forest certification.
"The Alliance has been an active participant in the revision process from day-one and we continue to contribute to the advancement of family forest owner interests within the FSC program," says Albert-Read.
From April 8-10, 2009 the FSC-International Center, staff from FSC-US and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources cooperated to pilot test draft policies related to group forest management and the proposed FSC-US Family Forests Standard.
"The field test included a review of the approach that Wisconsin has taken to certifying family forestlands through the Managed Forest Law Program which includes nearly 30,000 woodland owners and about 2 million acres of forestland," says Albert-Read.
The field test participants visited certified family forestlands in Sauk County, WI, and WI DNR staff organized the visits. The main objective was to evaluate how applicable, reasonable, and auditable the proposed indicators are through a simulated field audit and intensive critical discussion.
After field-testing, further revisions will be made to the Family Forests standard, and these revisions will be followed by two 60-day public comment periods.
For more information and to access the full report, visit:
http://www.familyforestsalliance.org
Direct link to download the report:
http://tcnef.org/uploads/documents/FFA-Observations-Report.pdf
Family Forest Alliance
