Solutions for Communities and Family Forests

Small-scale and community forests are at the heart of FSC. The specific challenges that these groups face are not only linked to the requirements of FSC certification, but also to access markets that value sustainability. To rise to these challenges, we are continuously working on increasing our impact and making the FSC more attractive to these stakeholders.

One size doesn’t fit all

Small-scale, family and community forests have specific characteristics, such as land size, ownership or internal governance that require tailor made approaches. Finding globally relevant and locally adaptable policy solutions and business or market related tools has been our goal for over 25 years. We have learned to embrace the complex barriers and challenges facing these groups and have created a toolbox aimed towards increasing uptake of FSC certification as well as adding benefit for these constituents.

In line with our FSC Global Strategy 2021-2026, we have divided our work into three distinct work streams; enablers, market solutions and policy solutions. These are all meant to complement each other to help increase uptake and benefit of FSC certification of small-scale and community forests.