The Initiative's workplan

(updated on June 27, 2002)

• To provide input in the development of forest management standards for the boreal and laurentian (mixed-hardwood) forests compatible with the FSC Principles and Criteria;
• To harmonize the boreal and mixed-hardwood standards with the current and future neighbouring FSC standards development processes;
• To contribute to the North American boreal standards process elaboration and activities; and
• To establish permanent collaboration processes between the Quebec FSC Initiative's Steering Committee, FSC Canada, and experimental sites.

Forest certification and the Forest Stewardship Council

FSC certification is a voluntary programme that identifies well-managed forests according to environmental, economic, social and aboriginal issues. This independent program followed by a third party certifier is based on a set of Principles and Criteria of forest management, developed by forest managers, owners, and industry, environmental and community groups representatives. Once that it is established that a manager's forest operations and the chain of production of the forest products derived from it meet the FSC-approved standards, the forest management unit can call itself an independently certified forest, and the products can be labeled with the FSC logo. This logo, internationally recognized, allows conscientious consumers to know that they are purchasing products coming from well-managed forests, and that consequently they are encouraging a socially and environmentally responsible forestry.

The Forest Stewardship Council forest certification programme is the most complete to date, working at both regional and international scale, and tracking products from the forest to the consumers.

The FSC regional standards development process

Given the diversity of ecosystems and social systems throughout the world, the FSC certification programme encourages the development of regional standards respecting the international Principles and Criteria of the FSC, which themselves emanate from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Although there exist generic standards available to certification bodies, they are used temporarily until regional standards are developed. In Canada, there are four regional standard development initiatives, located in British Columbia, Great Lakes/St.Lawrence, Boreal, and Maritimes.

The document FSC Process Guidelines For Developing Regional Certification Standards describes the directives in developing FSC regional standards. In summary, a regional standards development process must be:

• Compatible with the FSC Principles and Criteria, and with the local ecological, social, economic and aboriginal characteristics; and
• Submitted to a rigorous public consultation process based on consensus between a wide range of stakeholders.

• The development, implementation and coordination of the process must be shared by all of the participants and be independent from any one stakeholder;
• A diversified and balanced stakeholder representation must exist and cover economic, social, environmental and aboriginal interests;
• A transparent and fair decision-making mechanism must be put in place;
• A standard revision mechanism exists; and
• Although not compulsory, it could aim for processes at the regional scale and a structure favouring collaborative learning on a continuous basis.

The Quebec FSC Regional Standards Development Initiative

The development of regional FSC standards represents the first mandate of the Quebec Initiative. The Initiative must also ensure the FSC presence in Quebec to ensure a link between the population and the FSC Canada Working Group and the FSC itself. The Quebec FSC Initiative will pursue the following tasks:

• Technical
  • Input into standards development
  • Research activities management
• Coordination and communications
  • Public outreach
  • FSC promotion
• Political
  • Conflict resolution between Steering Committee membres
  • Regional participation in FSC policies