In 2010, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Standard (GLSL) development process was reinvigorated with the objective of resolving indicators that were not agreed upon during the 2006-2007 process and to address technical elements that must be implemented in order for the GLSL Standard to meet FSC International’s requirements for regional forest stewardship standards (FSC-STD-60-002).
This process resulted in the review and consultation of a draft Great Lakes St. Lawrence Standard in 2010 and in March 2011 FSC Canada submitted to FSC International the GLSL Forest Management Standard (Draft 4) for their review and accreditation. FSC International provided FSC Canada with a report highlighting their conditions and recommendations resulting from this review, and which must be met prior to the recommendation of the GLSL standard for accreditation.
After reviewing the conditions, recommendations and with the introduction of the newly revised FSC Principles and Criteria (which form the guiding framework for developing regional forest stewardship standards) FSC Canada’s Board of Directors have decided to postpone the accreditation of the GLSL Standard.
While we do not take this decision lightly, we are questioning the merits of pushing forward with accreditation of these standards only to have to soon start working to harmonize them with the new FSC Principles and Criteria. Despite this decision, all of the hard work of the GLSL standards committee will provide an excellent springboard for this harmonization work.
By postponing the accreditation, FSC Canada will now begin the process to align all of our Forest Management Standards (National Boreal Standard, Maritimes Standard, BC Standard and draft Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Standard) with the new Principles and Criteria and review all Forest Management Standards at the same stage of the revision process. FSC Canada will adopt a focused approach that respects previous work, agreements and provides opportunities for focused regional discussions on key indicators. Our aim is to have all of these standards revised by the end of 2013.
Current Forest Management certificates can continue to use the draft field tested GLSL Standard (version 3.0) as a reference, in addition to their Certification Body’s Generic Forest Stewardship Standards (FSC-STD-20-002).
In the upcoming months FSC Canada will begin to provide status updates and opportunities to become involved throughout the course of 2012.
Background
The GLSL Standard development process is led by the FSC Canada Standards Development Group (SDG), made up of balanced representation of Aboriginal, Economic, Environmental and Social interests (FSC Canada Board of Directors). In 2006, the FSC Canada SDG initiated the process to develop an FSC regional FM Standard for the Great Lakes St. Lawrence region in Ontario and Quebec. Following numerous meetings, various technical reports, public consultations and field testing, the GLSL Field-Tested Draft Standard (Draft 2.0) was released in April 2007. At this point, the SDG decided that it had received sufficient input and reached consensus on all Indicators within the standard, except for Indicators 6.4.5 and 6.5.6.