Forest certification is an important tool to improve forest management. Yet neither is it a universal remedy to solve the world's forest crisis, nor can it replace regulations and legislation.
However, it can and should complement these tools.
For WWF, credible forest certification is an important tool to promote responsible forest management and purchasing of forest products from well-managed forests.
In collaboration with the World Bank, WWF developed the Forest Certification Assessment Guide (FCAG), to assess the quality and credibility of certification schemes.
Assessing the certification schemes
In order to review WWF’s position on credible certification schemes, WWF commissioned an assessment using the FCAG to assess the two global certification systems:
- the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)
- PEFC (Program for Endorsement of Certification Systems).
The assessment focused on the rules set by these systems internationally, supplemented by an assessment of a sample of national FSC and PEFC standards/schemes, i.e. in Germany, Australia and Chile, with respect to elements that could not be assessed at an international level.
Results of the assessment
The assessment showed that few changes have been implemented at the international level in either of the two schemes since the last WWF assessment in 2005.
Based on this latest FCAG assessment as well as other previous assessments, it can be concluded that while there is room for improvement in both systems, FSC still best meets WWF's core requirements, namely for:
- driving significant improvements in forest management on the ground;
- meeting as a minimum WWF's core values on meaningful and equitable participation of all major stakeholder groups, reliable and independent assessment, certification decisions free of conflicts of interest, transparency in decision making and reporting; and
- delivering consistency across countries.
WWF's commitment
We
will continue to actively focus our efforts on improving the FSC system, and on promoting the FSC logo as an internationally recognized hallmark of responsible forest management.
Not perfect...
WWF also acknowledges that both FSC and PEFC need improvements. FSC needs to improve in its approach to interim standards, while PEFC needs to improve across a range of issues.
