Slovakian and German systems and Malaysian forest plantation standard open for global public consultation
Stakeholders globally are invited to comment on their compliance with PEFC International's Sustainability Benchmarks by 20 April 2015.
Slovakian and German systems and Malaysian forest plantation standard open for global public consultation
19 February 2015 PEFC system news
The global public consultations for the Slovakian and German national forest certification systems and the Malaysian Criteria and Indicators for Forest Plantations standard are now open, following their submission to PEFC for re-endorsement.
Stakeholders globally are invited to comment on their compliance with PEFC International's Sustainability Benchmarks by 20 April 2015.
Germany was one of the first countries to achieve the PEFC endorsement of its national system back in 2000, and joins Finland as the only other country to submit its system for re-endorsement for a record third time. There are now nearly 7.4 million hectares of PEFC-certified forests in the country, equivalent to two thirds of the whole German forest area, including all state-owned forests.
Slovakia first achieved endorsement of its national forest management certification system a few years later in 2005, this was followed by a successful re-endorsement in 2010. Since then, almost 65% of the country’s forests have become PEFC certified – more than 1.2 million hectares.
The Malaysian Criteria and Indicators (MC&I) for Forest Plantations is a complementary standard to the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), which includes the MC&I for Natural Forests. The submission of this second edition of the MC&I for Forest Plantations, which is designed to assess the management practices for, and enable the certification of, forest plantations, follows the recent re-endorsement of the MTCS last year.
PEFC International limits the validity of endorsements to five years, ensuring that national systems are revised in multi-stakeholder processes after which they can apply for re-endorsement to continue benefitting from PEFC recognition.
As part of the endorsement process, PEFC seeks comments and feedback from all interested parties to ensure full compliance of the national systems with PEFC's Sustainability Benchmark during a 60-day global public consultation.
All comments received during the global public consultation will provide valuable information for the third-party assessor in determining whether the respective national system is in compliance with international requirements.
Interested stakeholders are invited to use PEFC's Online Consultation Tool to provide comments on the German Forest Certification Scheme, the Slovakian Forest Certification Scheme and the MC&I Forest Plantations standard, by 20 April 2015.