FSC developing into a foundation for all forest related ecosystem
At the FSC General Assembly 2008 in Cape Town, NEPCon interviewed Richard Donovan, Head of the Forestry Division of the Rainforest Alliance and asked him where he expects to see the FSC by the year 2020? “By 2020 I think we will see FSC having developed into a foundation for all forest related ecosystem services. This doesn’t mean that FSC would have standards for water management, carbon etc. Rather, I imagine that FSC will be balancing all these values. “We would probably also see at least 100 certificates by then on non-timber forest products. If you ask small forest holders in the US, the number one value of forests for them is the recreational value. I also see computerisation both in the forest management and chain of custody solving a lot of issues. Auditing will become more automated, reducing certification trouble a lot. However, I doubt that chain of custody certified companies shall expect less time-investment in their CoC, since the requirements for due diligence will gradually go up.
“An interesting likely development is the emergence of more commercial joint ventures between communities, indigenous groups and commercial co-operations. There will be less generalisation on ’small and good’ versus ‘big and bad’.
“Finally I see certification on a way larger scale - region, state or even country level. The FM and CoC groups will become larger. We currently have some limitations for the size of groups that I find unnecessarily limiting”.