Footprints in the forest - Fern

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Field visits are not mandatory before a forest is certified and nor is public consultation of interested parties during the certification process or monitoring audits. Only the PEFC members have to be consulted. External monitoring audits are carried out every year for the regional forest institutions (public and private) by certification bodies that must be accredited by the national organisation COFRAC. This involves a desk review of the ISO certification and of progress indicators. In some regions, field visits will also be carried out at that stage by the certification body. Random internal audits with field visits will also be carried out every year by the regional entity to check compliance of the participants of the regional certification. A forest owner/manager can be expelled from the regional certification in case of non-compliance and if corrective action is not implemented. So far, no participant of a regional certification has been expelled. The percentage of forest owners/managers who are visited on the field visits for the monitoring audits is left to the discretion of each regional entity, depending on the available budget. It is 1% in the region Centre and 5% in the region Rhone-Alpes 91 . Criteria V: Full transparency to all concerned parties and the public Requirements as regards to public disclosure of audit reports are left to the discretion of the regional entities. Neither full audit reports nor summaries are readily available to interested parties. Reports were requested by WWF France from the regional PEFC in Normandy which never sent the documents 92 . Criteria VI: Certification at the forest management unit level, rather than at country or regional level PEFC France is mostly based on regional certification. However, if no regional certification standard is in place, individual or group certification is possible, based on the national standard (one group certificate has been issued outside a regional certification scheme but no individual certificate). The first step in the regional certification process is the verification by the certification body that the regional standard is in line with the national PEFC guidelines, minimum requirements, and procedures. 91 Emmanuelle Neyroumande. WWF France. Personal communication. July 7, 2003 92 Ibid 31
The second step is the verification of the ISO certification of the regional branch of the National Forest Office (ONF, which manages all public forests) and the Private Forest Regional Center (CRPF, which trains forest owners and validates their management plans). Once these two forest institutions have gone through the external audit and received a PEFC certificate, all forests in that region become automatically “certifiable”. In order for private forest owners to become part of the regional certification program, an agreement to follow PEFC’s minimum requirements and rules on the use of the logo is signed between the owner and the regional entity. The agreement is a one page letter and the minimum requirements are usually around ten points, which include some performance requirement (such as no plantation on peat bog, no chemicals cans left in the forest…) and process requirements (such as trainings). As regards to public forests, they are all certified as long as the ONF in that region has received a certificate during the second step of the process. The forest institutions (ONF and CRPF) are required to have ISO certification before they can get certified by PEFC. However, to date, PEFC France has accepted to certify for two years the forest institutions who are not yet ISO certified (none are ISO certified yet but have committed to start the process to get ISO certification). Forest institutions in 11 regions are PEFC-certified, which in turn means that all the forests in these regions are certifiable. As of July 16, 5643 private forest owners were PEFC certified (which means they have signed an agreement with the regional entity). WWF France estimates that more than 50% of all State forest are PEFC certified. In the Burgundy region, all the State forests have already been PEFC certified. Criteria VII: Cost effectiveness and voluntary nature Costs vary from region to region. In Burgundy for example, certification costs are 11 euros under 4 ha, and 11 euros plus 0.11 euros/ha/annum for properties above 4 ha 93 . Costs are estimated to vary between 0.10 to 0.20 euros per hectare, depending on the subsidies the regional PEFC manages to get. WWF France estimates that 50% of the certification costs are subsidized, in particular by regional councils. In case of group certification, forest owners are required to sign an engagement letter if they want to participate in the group certification. In case of regional certification, only forest owners signing an engagement are certified. Only participating forest owners are considered certified. 93 PEFC France. Press release 15 March 2002 32
Page 1 and 2: PEFC Footprints in the forest Curre
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Introduction 3 Co
Page 5 and 6: II. Conclusions The main purpose of
Page 7 and 8: efore a regional certificate is iss
Page 9 and 10: III Overview of all PEFCC members a
Page 11 and 12: 3.2. Decision making structure and
Page 13 and 14: Decision making structure/voting wi
Page 15 and 16: owners association) after a third-p
Page 17 and 18: of the private forest owners in Lat
Page 19 and 20: SWITZERLAND This is the web site of
Page 21 and 22: IV. PEFC Sweden Author: Elisa Peter
Page 23 and 24: A new standard for group-certificat
Page 25 and 26: Because registers are not publicly
Page 27 and 28: SWEDAC has its own regulations to h
Page 29 and 30: VI PEFC Finland This section will b
Page 31: Criteria II: Equal and balanced par
Page 35 and 36: Criteria XII: A transparent and hig
Page 37 and 38: PEFC Germany - status of certificat
Page 39 and 40: assessed during field visits then s
Page 41 and 42: The complaints mechanism is based o
Page 43 and 44: Annex 1 - List of PEFC members (fro
Page 46 and 47: Annex 2 - PEFC Belgium Charter CHAR
Page 48 and 49: and grazing, where the dimensions a
Page 50 and 51: 5-3 Are summary reports of certific
Page 52: References Dahl, L. April 2002. Bak

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