PEFC International, the world’s largest forest certification scheme, is calling on all stakeholders to nominate candidates for a working group dedicated to the revision of two of its core documents. The documents deal with PEFC’s global criteria for sustainable forest management and its standard setting procedures at national level.
PEFC International, the world’s largest forest certification scheme, is calling on all
stakeholders to nominate candidates for a working group dedicated to the revision of two of its core documents. The documents deal with PEFC’s global criteria for sustainable forest management and its standard setting procedures at national level.
“This process is of fundamental importance to sustainable forest management and PEFC certification,” says PEFC Secretary-General, Ben Gunneberg. “These documents define not only the environmental, social and economic criteria that have to be met by forest management practices in order to be sustainable, but also the procedures for the development of national forest certification schemes. It is vital that international sustainability benchmarks are periodically reviewed and revised to reflect current best-practise and knowledge.?
PEFC’s forest management criteria (Annex 3: Basis for Certification Schemes and their
Implementation) are based on requirements developed by intergovernmental processes such as the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), and the African Timber Organisation (ATO).
“These intergovernmental processes best reflect society?s expectations of sustainable
forest management and are the results of wide-ranging and comprehensive, multistakeholder negotiations,” explains Mr. Tymrak, Head of the PEFC Technical Unit, who will be facilitating the working group. “One of the tasks of the working group will be to evaluate whether to complement these processes with PEFC specific criteria and interpretations, to address needs and requirements unique to forest certification, and what such criteria may look like.”
The revision of PEFC’s standard setting procedures (Annex 2: Rules for Standard Setting) will focus on optimising the criteria for open and transparent multi-stakeholder processes, and delivering consensus on sustainable forest management at national and local levels. PEFC International invites all interest parties to nominate candidates for the working groups to ensure balanced representation of all stakeholders.
To secure the widest participation possible, PEFC will also organise stakeholder dialogues and engage in direct and public, global consultations at various stages of the revision process, which is scheduled to be finalised in autumn of 2010. This work is part of a comprehensive revision of PEFC’s technical documentation and complements the ongoing revision of PEFC’s Chain of Custody Standard, due for submission and approval by the General Assembly in November 2009, and the already completed revision of PEFC’s Logo Usage Guidelines, which came into effect in late 2008.
