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Smallholder certification & NCT

NCT has managed a FSC group certificate since 1999. This allows members of the co-operative to get their farms certified under the NCT Group Management System. Approximately 72 000ha are certified under this system. However, the average size of the management units certified is about 1 000 ha. This is a relatively large operation for private ownership.

NCT has long been concerned that the smaller members of the co-operative are not able to get certified. In 2002, NCT was involved with an FSC initiative to develop a system that would be more user-friendly for smaller operations – Small & low impact operations – SLIMF).

In 2003, NCT was awarded a SLIMF certificate and was able to certify 67 members under this certificate. However, over a five-year period, most of the members of this group resigned from the system as they found that the benefits did not warrant the complexity and costs of complying with the system. In 2008, NCT closed this certificate.

In recent years, the FSC has recognised that further initiatives are required to ensure that certification does not become a trade barrier to smallholders.

NCT is once again involved in leading a project to make certification accessible to smaller operations.

The project

In 2013, NCT, TWK, SAPPI and Mondi invested in an initiative to find solutions to the smallholder certification problem. The strategy of the project is to address three broad issues that have proven to be a barrier to certifying smallholders in South Africa:• Costs and sample intensity. A balance needs

to be found between the risks involved in certifying a landscape containing small plantation operations and the costs in assessing this risk (audit intensity).

Small operations, by nature of their scale and intensity, are usually low risk at a landscape level.

Craig Norris, NCT’s Forest Technology Services Manager

CERTIFICATION OFSMALL- & MEDIUM-SCALE OPERATIONS

(SMALLHOLDERS)

Certification of smallholder forestry has been a challenge throughout the world. However, in South Africa this is made even more relevant because of the government’s land reform program, which is likely to increase the amount of land owned by communities.

As the demand for certified products increases abroad and locally, certification could become a trade barrier to smaller management units. Therefore, NCT together with other Industry partners, have created a project to test the effectiveness of a number of FSC (Forest Stewardship Certification) initiatives and other innovative approaches designed to improve smallholder’s access to FSC certification.

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• Appropriate standards. The goal would be toinfluence interpretation of the FSC standard through the SA National standard and change indicators where appropriate. It may be necessary to address certain issues at the FSC policy level.

• Ensurerealisticassessments.Thisaspectof theproject would focus on influencing the way the certification bodies work (auditors) to ensure that their interpretation of requirements is appropriate to scale and intensity.For certification purposes, smallholders can be

grouped into three categories: individual family-owned farms that have less than 1 000 ha of timber; land reform farms under community trust ownership; and small-scale timber growers in areas where land is communally owned. The project aims to find solutions to certifying these various smallholder categories.

Pilot projects

An important aspect of this work will be to test ideas in pilot certification schemes. The project has recently been awarded a grant from the FSC Smallholders Fund which can be used to assist in certifying plantations/woodlots in communal areas.

These funds will be used to run a pilot project in the Ozwathini Tribal Authority area. In an introductory phase, a management system will be developed and implemented over a three-year period.

Year 1 will focus on training and mentorship in preparation for certification; year 2 will involve implementation and auditing of the operations resulting in a certificate being issued; and in year 3, support will be given to the maintenance of the certification through the first surveillance audit.

If the project is successful, it will be possible to use the model to promote FSC certification to smallholders in southern Africa and the rest of Africa.

Similar pilot schemes will be set up for commercial family farms and land reform projects.

Expectations for the smallholders

NCT has great expectations and believe that the smallholders will benefit tremendously from FSC certification and training.

Benefits would include: improved access to markets; improved roads and infrastructure; increased revenues from timber sales; improved health and safety of the operations; improved legal compliance, greater capacity to manage the environment and increased protection of biodiversity.

All this will mean improved livelihoods in impoverished rural areas. The aim and hope is also to broaden the experiences to other smallholders around the world.

The last phase of the project therefore is to share lessons and experiences with other smallholder groups globally in order to ensure equitable access to the benefits of FSC systems.