The acronym for FSC certification refers to the Forest Stewardship Council, a non-governmental body dedicated to the accreditation and certification of responsible management of forests from an environmental point of view. Headquartered today in Germany, it was created in 1993 in Toronto to promote sustainable forest management (environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable use of the world’s forests).
Thus, its main mission would be to create standards and policies to carry out a sustainable and responsible use of forests and accredit certain entities to evaluate the candidates and grant them or not, forest certification.
For this it is based on 10 principles.
1. Compliance with laws.
2. Workers’ rights and working conditions.
3. Rights of indigenous peoples.
4. Relations with the community.
5. Benefits of the forest.
6. Environmental values and impacts.
7. Management planning.
8. Monitoring and evaluation.
9. High conservation values.
10. Implementation of management activities.
WHAT ARE ITS MAIN TASKS?
1. Develop globally recognized, agreed and accepted standards.
2. Strengthen the image of a forestry sector capable of contributing to a more sustainable development model.
3. Ensure the conservation of biodiversity and the ecological cycles of forests.
4. Ensure the proper use of the FSC brand.
5. Promote and disseminate the criteria and techniques for good forest management.
6. Promote planned management and certification of forests.
7. Promote the use of forest certification as a tool for cooperation with developing countries.
In short, FSC certification helps to ensure that a product comes from a well-managed forest from start to finish: from the tree to the consumer.
TYPES OF FSC CERTIFICATIONS
FSC itself does not issue certificates. Independent certification bodies perform the forest management and chain of custody assessments that lead to FSC certification. Certification bodies are accountable to Assurance Services International. Certifications can be of 3 types:
A. FSC FOREST MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION:
Asegura que el bosque se está manejando de forma sostenible; confirma que se está llevando a cabo la preservación de la diversidad biológica, que está beneficiando las vidas de las poblaciones y de sus trabajadores locales y al mismo tiempo, se está manteniendo la viabilidad económica.
B. FSC certification of the chain of custody:
It guarantees that the products that are on the market with the FSC label come from socially responsible and environmental sources.
C. Controlled wood certification:
It controls that FSC wood can only be mixed with FSC certified wood in FSC labeled products.
Every day we use many products derived from wood from the forests such as furniture, paper, books, latex, resins, medicines … that is why we can all collaborate being responsible with our purchases and taking into account that these products come from managed forests Responsibly. The FSC label is a good indication if we want to defend biodiversity and the responsible use of natural renewables.