FSC social strategy: building and implementing a social agenda [version 2.1]

This strategy document from FSC is an attempt to “recognize the concerns of FSC’s ‘social constituencies”, to formulate core social values for the organisation, and to translate these ideals into specific objectives, outputs and activities that are closely connected with the organization’s core business, of standards, accreditation, and labelling.

The strategy draws on ideas and comments expressed over a number of years by a wide range of stakeholders. It collects the results of a series of meetings in which social issues have been discussed in an attempt to initiate a collaborative strategic planning process.

The report itself begins by identifying the key social constituents and target groups and the key issues of relevance to those groups. Key issues include:

• Improving the implementation and monitoring of those Principles that relate specifically to social issues
• Respect the rights of people involved in or impacted by forest management
• Addressing issues of scale and intensity
• Building local capacity in the FSC system
• Capacity building and support for community use and management of forests
• Improving two-way communication between FSC and its social constituencies
• Addressing market inequities

It then identifies complementary objectives outputs and activities to address these issues. The objectives identified are as follows:

• Compliance. By 2006, enhance FSC processes and procedures to ensure effective compliance with the FSC’s ‘social’ Principles and Criteria (P&Cs,) and more equitable access to FSC forest certification among all forms of forest users and tenure holders.
• Communication. By 2006, establish a communication system that facilitates the exchange of information, experiences and lessons learned on social issues and forest certification at local, national and international levels.
• Capacity building. By 2006, increase capacity within FSC, its social constituents, and in partnership with other key stakeholders, to support marginalized social groups to play an equitable role in FSC certification processes and to achieve their goals in forest use and certification.
• Market benefits. By 2006, support systems created and offered to social constituents to promote the equitable distribution of forest benefits to social constituencies and optimise market benefits from forest certification.

Finally the report outlines procedures for the implementation of the strategy including operational planning, priority setting and roles and responsibilities.