FSC Launches New Standard to Address Canadian Forests

 

The Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) said this week it is proud to announce the launch of a comprehensive new standard for responsible forest management in Canada. After five years of rigorous consultation with industry, environment, and social stakeholders and indigenous groups, the new standard targets the most pressing issues threatening Canadian forests today, including the woodland caribou crisis; the rights of indigenous peoples; workers’ rights including gender equity; conservation; and landscape management.

"We are facing some of the most important issues in Canadian forest management history," said Francois Dufresne, president, FSC Canada. "It was important for FSC to equally involve a diverse group of experts and interests to establish a new national framework that can be adopted across the entire forest industry."

FSC has certified 200 million hectares globally, with over 50 million hectares in Canada. It offers the world’s most respected and recognized standard for sustainable forest management, in part because it solicits and equally balances input from a diverse membership to achieve solutions to complex challenges, including recognition of Indigenous rights, along with the balance of conservation and economic opportunity. FSC’s member groups and organizations include Kimberly-Clark, Rayonier Advanced Materials, Rainforest Alliance, Wolf Lake First Nation, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, UBC, Greenpeace Canada and many others.

The updated standard consolidates FSC’s existing, four regional standards into one national standard that has been amended to strengthen Canadian forests and the people, flora and fauna that depend on them. The recommendations range from physical solutions – such as buffer zones around waterways to keep streams and rivers clean — to ones that thread our social fabric, such as indigenous involvement in forestry planning and gender equity throughout the industry.