Freitas Key challenges

Shortly before the FSC General Assembly, we asked him the following key question:

Certified Wood Update: In your view, what are the 3 most important challenges for the FSC system?

Credibility is key

“Ensuring the credibility of our system is the top challenge. We need to focus on the performance of certification bodies and how the accreditation system handles this. We are already working on this issue, but we need to take it further. Also, we must improve the underlying policies and simplify our system in order for all stakeholders to understand how it works.

And then we should make sure to highlight the positive impacts of FSC certification on the ground, which have been demonstrated in several independent reports. We’re also working on how we communicate with stakeholders. We are moving towards a more open and transparent communication approach, in which we communicate both good developments and recognize where we need to improve”.
 

Need of resources 

“As the second challenge, I would choose to mention the need to ensure adequate resources for running our system and providing support for our network. Historically, we have been supported mainly by grants and donations. Now we have reached a size where we need to rely more on revenue from the system itself”.
 

Smallholders and tropical forests

“Challenge number three would be the need to make more inroads into certification of tropical forests and small operations, as these are groups where we haven’t been very successful yet”. Freitas finds the Modular Approach Scheme promising for certification in the tropics. “The gap between existing forestry practises and the FSC standard is generally wider in the tropical zone than in other parts of the world”, he says. The Modular Approach provides recognition for forest operations while they are already making progresses towards full compliance with FSC standards”.

As for smallholder certification, he mentions several possible actions: “I believe that we need to re-evaluate the SLIMF procedures (special certification procedures adapted to Small and Low-Intensity Managed Forests, ed.). I also think that we need to be a little bit bolder and also look at the standards themselves and how they can be adjusted to small forest holdings. One way to go is to develop a separate standard for group certification”.
 

FSC will be stronger in 5 years

Freitas believes that FSC will manage to overcome all of these challenges within the next 5 years: “My vision of FSC in 5 years’ time is a stronger, more credible and yet more accessible certification system, which provides significant value for all stakeholders involved.”, he says.