During COP15 in Montreal, Canada, FSC together with WWF and IKEA announced the launch of an initiative to fast-track Biodiversity Assessments in FSC-certified forests. Now, during COP16 in Cali, Colombia, the first results are ready to be shared, taking a further step in demonstrating the value of forest biodiversity and contributing to the delivery of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Source: Timberbiz
These first results indicate promising initial research into the benefits of responsible forest stewardship for biodiversity.
In the current biodiversity crisis, monitoring and assessing the impacts of human activities and conservation initiatives is increasingly important. Forest ecosystems and their responsible management have a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity across the globe. However, there is still a lack of robust evidence on how much responsible forest management, especially FSC Forest Management (FM) certification, contributes to biodiversity conservation.
Biodiversity loss is the third greatest threat humanity will face in the next decade. More than one million species are facing an unprecedented extinction rate, and at least 40% of the Earth’s land surface has degraded.
Evaluating the outcomes of FSC certification is essential to allow insight-driven improvements of Forest Stewardship Standards (FSS) and be able to communicate about the positive outcomes of responsible forest stewardship. This is important for FSC to remain relevant and credible in a changing market where substantiating sustainability impacts is increasingly needed.
In late 2022, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), WWF and IKEA initiated the Fast-Tracking Biodiversity Assessment project. Soon after its announcement at the COP15 in Montreal , several other companies joined the project, which generally aims to enhance the understanding and monitoring of the effects of FSC certification on biodiversity. It has two main objectives:
- To evaluate the biodiversity value associated with FSC FM certification.
- To advance in the development of a standardized and robust monitoring framework for forest biodiversity as part of FSC certification.
The project focuses on Brazil, Finland, and Sweden. In these three countries where biodiversity represents an important sustainability value, and where responsible forest management plays an important role for its maintenance.
The project benefits from a combination of a technical perspective thanks to the involvement of local consultants and researchers with strong expertise in biodiversity and forest management, and a market perspective, thanks to the participation of various market actors steering the project. This combination ensures a good balance between the scientific soundness necessary to evaluate the outcomes of conservation and management activities and the relevance of the approach taken and subsequent communication of the results to a broad audience on the market.
An interactive story presents the key results related to objective 1: to evaluate the biodiversity value associated with FSC FM certification. In addition, the project’s final reports provide more in-depth information and results. In each country, local consultants sought insights into the monitoring, management and conservation of biodiversity associated with FSC certification through exploring:
More information is available here.
