Certification support material for Smallholders

ProForest has collaborated with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to develop a package of FSC-endorsed user-friendly information on topics of importance to smallholders and communities.

The material is designed to be used by small forest owners associations, NGOs, foresters, local governments, certification bodies, FSC National Initiatives and group certification managers – indeed by anyone working to support community forestry and small forest operations to improve their forest management and to obtain FSC certification.

The information consists of:

Five case studies on small or community operations:

• Non-Timber Forest Products in Nepal (ANSAB)
• Furniture Producing Cooperative in Honduras (COATLAHL)
• Northwest Certified Forestry in the USA
• FLOPEN forest group certification scheme in Portugal
• Formation of Successful Sustainable Forest Cooperative in Indonesia (KHJL)

 Five briefing notes:

• Group Certification
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Evaluating and Monitoring Social Impacts
• High Conservation Value Forests and Biodiversity
• Simple Monitoring Methodologies

Each briefing note is accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation on the same subject.

The leaflets can be downloaded individually via the above links or as a package here. They are also available in Spanish. All material is also available in more languages (including Chinese and French) on a new section of the FSC website specifically designed for small, low intensity and community operations.

The material is designed to be internationally applicable and generic, but with a view to being adapted to regional, national and local contexts. FSC National Initiatives and other FSC partners can contact FSC to obtain editable versions of the material, to produce locally-appropriate versions by changing pictures, and translating into local languages.  

This work is part of ProForest’s ongoing work to address the challenges faced by smallholders in participating in international certification schemes. For more information contact Dawn Robinson via dawn@proforest.net.