Message from the FSC chair

The Forest Stewardship Council of the future - Drawing up the big picture - Have your say.

The Forest Stewardship Council(FSC) has made real changes in forest management in its first decade, with one of the predominant results being its democratic stakeholder process. FSC has changed the global forest debate and its success has forced the forest sector to accept that they have to consider other stakeholders. This success has also bred many competing schemes for forest certification and, as a true leader in global certification, FSC has to expect followers. It is important to realize that the demand on corporations to take corporate responsibility for the products sold in their stores have resulted in a demand for products that can be proven to come from well-managed forests. If there is no pressure on the economic sector to achieve other targets than return on investment the temptation to use the renewable forest resource for short-term profits is huge. FSC is a vehicle to encourage and push the forest product sector towards responsible forest management. FSC provides a truly independent, international and credible labelling scheme on timber and timber products. This will guarantee that the product has come from a forest, which has been evaluated and certified as being managed according to democratically agreed social, economic and environmental standards.

During FSC´s first ten years certification has been more successful in developed countries than in developing countries. One reason for this is due to a longer history of forest management in developed countries. Ironically, although in developing countries there are forests which are ecologically more intact than in developed countries it is not so easy for them to become certified as well managed. In developing countries there are more unsolved land tenure rights and long-term management planning is less common. In short; to enable developing countries to move towards responsible forest management needs more work and investment than in developed countries. FSC needs to find effective ways to address this imbalance in the coming decade. There is not time to wait another ten years.

FSC is a unique and valuable initiative, with enormous potential. In order to realise more of that potential, we have to become a more effective, outward looking and responsive organisation. FSC has to become truly pro-active. FSC has got this far due to the hard work and support of many committed people around the world. FSC has now to turn itself from a movement to an organization without losing its soul. We need to have the courage to make radical changes where needed to prepare for our second decade to ensure that FSC will deliver its mission.

Where does FSC want to position itself in five years time? Is the way FSC is designed suited to address today's and tomorrow's needs as we come up to the end of the first 10 years of FSC?

1. If we were inventing FSC today, knowing what we know now, what would it look like?

2. How can FSC really start to deliver on its mission in the South?

3. FSC started by accrediting forest and chain of custody certification, is this now too narrow a scope or is it still appropriate? Should FSC diversify into other related areas, directly or indirectly through partnerships or should we stick to our core competency of forest certification and let other organisations take on the wider related issues.

To answer these questions this e-mail conference is a part of the preparation for the General Assembly which will be held in Oaxaca, Mexico in November 2002. This e-mail conference is important to ensure that there is an opportunity top hear from members and users of FSC on these big issues facing FSC. The idea is to encourage you to think big and look forward.

The UK Government Forestry Research Programme is funding a professionally planned and moderated email conference over a period of 8 weeks to carry out this broad consultation process.

The FSC objectives conference is funded by DFID-FRP (UK) projectnr ZF0185, and facilitated by Treemail (NL)
For more information please contact: info@fscobjectives.org