FSC US National Forest Stewardship Standard
Draft 2 Public Consultation
Introduction
The Forest Stewardship Council U.S. is pleased to present the second draft of its revised version of the FSC US National Forest Stewardship Standard (Draft V2-2.0-2022) for public consultation. When final and approved, this Standard will be the second version of our existing FSC US Forest Management Standard.
The 60-day public consultation is open from March 31 to May 31, 2022.
Following below is information to help stakeholders review the revised standard, understand key issues being addressed, and provide comments as part of this public consultation.
The Forest Stewardship Council is widely recognized as the world’s most trusted certification system due in large part to the quality and rigor of its forest management standards. This draft of the revised National Forest Stewardship Standard offers further refinement of the strong existing standard for the United States, aligning it with the FSC Principles and Criteria Version 5 and the International Generic Indicators.
Our goal is to deliver a standard that is best-in-class and achievable by streamlining the existing standard and addressing a small number of priority issues, identified below. To achieve this goal, we need clear, actionable input from an informed and diverse set of stakeholders.
The purpose of this website is to provide the information needed to participate in the public consultation.
National Forest Stewardship Standard for Review
This Draft 2 of the National Forest Stewardship Standard represents an extraordinary level of dedication and effort by the FSC US Board of Directors, who serve as the Standard Development Group.
The Standard Development Group brought technical expertise and diverse consideration to review the broad range of input provided during the first public consultation. Throughout, they focused on ensuring the indicators recommended were focused and streamlined and clear in intent, and that the Standard would be applied consistently across the United States.
The Standard Development Group’s efforts reflect the experience and knowledge of the individuals who comprise our Board of Directors, as well as the values and issues important to their respective membership chambers (Environmental, Social, Economic). The Standard Development Group paid particular attention to the objectives of maintaining and enhancing the integrity and credibility of the standard, promoting clear and substantive on-the-ground impacts, and accessibility and feasibility for current and new certificate holders.
Please begin your review with the Consultation Report (available either WITH or WITHOUT lengthy annexes). This document includes a summary of the key issues raised during the first consultation and how the Standard Development Group responded to these issues, plus a set of annexes with all comments submitted.
We offer two versions of the revised Standard to support this public consultation:
To assist your review, we are also sharing an Excel Workbook that was used to summarize and track comments, in addition to Standard Development Group responses.
Webinars
To support stakeholders and promote informed, actionable input, FSC US will host two webinars.
Webinar registration is required – Click on the links below to register:
Submit Comments
FSC US is collecting input via the FSC Consultation Platform. Please submit all comments through this platform to ensure they are officially registered in the consultation.
Deadline
The 60-day public consultation ends on Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 4:59PM Central Time.
Questions?
If you have questions about the public consultation, please contact FM.Revision@us.fsc.org
Background information about the revision process, and how it will proceed after this consultation, provided in the Consultation Report and is also available at the FSC US Forest Management Standard Revision 2018-2022 webpage.