Public announcement

Stakeholder Consultation on Tanzania National Forest Stewardship Standards (NFSS) based on FSC™.

About FSC The Forest Stewardship Council™ A.C. (FSC™) was established in 1993, as a follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, 1992) with the mission to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests. FSC is an international organization that provides a system for voluntary accreditation and independent third-party certification. This system allows certificate holders to market their products and services as the result of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable forest management. The FSC also sets standards for the development and approval of FSC Stewardship Standards which are based on the FSC Principles and Criteria. In addition, FSC sets standards for the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies (also known as certification bodies) that certify compliance with FSC’s standards. Based on these standards, FSC provides a system for certification for organizations seeking to market their products as FSC certified.

Innovative Approaches While working on the NFSS, the Tanzanian SDG has taken into consideration on FSC mission built on: Environmentally appropriate forest management that ensures that the production of timber, non-timber products and ecosystem services maintains the forest’s biodiversity, productivity, and ecological processes. Socially beneficial forest management helps both local people and society at large to enjoy long term benefits and also provides strong incentives to local people to sustain the forest resources and adhere to long-term management plans. Economically viable forest management means that forest operations are structured and managed so as to be sufficiently profitable, without generating financial profit at the expense of the forest resource, the ecosystem, or affected communities.

Stakeholder Consultation on Tanzania National Forest Stewardship Standards (NFSS)

Tanzanian stakeholders, in May 2015, have agreed to establish National Standard Developement Group (SDG) to work on developing National Forest Stewardship Standards (NFSS) based on FSC International Generic Indicators (IGIs). To date, national stakeholders have managed to produce draft National FSC Standards with facilitation of the National Standards Development Group

(SDG). The draft FSC standards have adopted and adapted the new IGIs taking on board the revised P&C as indicated in the version 5 of the FSC-STD-01-004 V1 EN FSC International Generic Indicators (IGIs).

According to FSC procedures, (FSC-60-006) a website (http://www.tafmp.co.tz ) has been set up

as open source for interested parties and stakeholders who can comment upon and discuss the

proposed draft standards. It is on this basis that Tanzania SDG, takes this opportunity to inform

that the public consultation of the first NFSS draft open to all stakeholders. The standards are

available on request. Please contact the SDG Cordinator: Isaac Malugu. Email:

imalugu@wwftz.org; Skype ID: isaacmalugu; Mobile +255 784 775877

Public Stakeholders Consultations The following public consultation meetings are planned on the following dates in the following regions.

Zonal and National Workshop

Venue When Participants

NFSS Zonal workshops

Lindi 8th February 2016

Southern zone: Mtwara, Lindi and Ruvuma and Coast regions

Iringa 16th February 2016

Southern highlands zone : Mbeya, Iringa and Morogoro regions

Tanga 19th February 2016

Northern zone: Tanga, Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Manyara regions

NFSS National workshop

Dar es Salaam

29th February 2016

Selected national stakeholders from various zones will be invited.

Please confirm your availability to contact given above.