Revision of Requirements for Development and Maintenance of Locally Adapted FSC Requirements (FSS and FSC RAs)

1. FSC-STD-60-006 V1-2 Process Requirements for the development and maintenance of National Forest Stewardship Standards;
2. FSC STD-60-002 V1-0 Structure and Content of National Forest Stewardship Standards;
3. FSC-PRO-60-006 V2-0 Development and Transfer of National Forest Stewardship Standards to the FSC Principles and Criteria Version 5-1, and
4. FSC-PRO-60-007 V1-2 Structure, Content and Development of Interim National Standards
5. FSC-PRO-60-002 V3-0 The Development and Approval of FSC® National Risk Assessments. 

The period of validity for all four documents has expired. Several factors and processes drive the revision of these requirements, including FSC Global Strategy and the current requirements for the revision of normative documents. The FSC Global Strategy requires outcome orientation, streamlining and data driven approach to be incorporated in the requirements for FSS development. Additionally, in the regular review process the Performance and Standards Unit (PSU), the Forest Management Community (FMC) and other stakeholders have found around 53 specific issues to be revised, e.g. inconsistency, redundancy and lack of clarity in the requirements for Forest Stewardship Standards.

During preparation for the revision process, PSU team has further identified the opportunity to merge process requirements for the development and maintenance of FSS with process requirements for the development and maintenance of FSC Risk Assessments (the content requirements for FSC RAs are included in the FSC-PRO-60-006b, which was published on 1 July 2024). PSU presented the concept and results of a feasibility exercise to the Policy Steering Group (PSG), which supported merger of process requirements for developing and maintaining FSC FSS with the requirements under procedure FSC-PRO-60-002 for FSC RAs. As a result, starting in 2023, the revision process includes FSC-PRO-60-002 requirements in its scope.

The objectives of the revision process are to:

1. improve the quality of the FSC Country Requirements, their relevance, understandability, completeness, simplicity, user-friendliness and consistency with other applicable requirements within the FSC normative framework;
2. incorporate outcome orientation (including monitoring and evaluation as well as data requirement) in FSC Country Requirements processes; and
3. increase the efficiency, quality, and reliability of the processes for the development and maintenance of FSC Country Requirements.

Nicolás Mesía Rojas, country_requirements@fsc.org

Fernanda Rodrigues, Brazilian Forests Dialogue 

Aidas Pivoriūnas, FSC Lithuania 

Yadid Ordoñez, FSC Latin America 

Owen Davies, Independent Consultant

Revision of FSC Risk Assessment Framework Procedure FSC-PRO-60-002b. Learn more below:

You can stay informed of the developments on this revision process by staying tuned to this process page and by participating in consultations and webinars. 

Register here to stay informed and participate in the revision process.