Following constructive dialogue between the National Sami Association (SSR) and FSC, SCA has decided to postpone the implementation of it's pause to FSC Forest Management certification in Sweden.

• FSC has published a response, regretting SCA’s decision and responding to SCA’s points. FSC encourages SCA to engage with FSC rather than terminating its FSC certification status.
• FSC argues against a singular focus on carbon and emphasises the need to consider multiple environmental impacts.
• FSC claim the move is likely to reduce environmental considerations of SCA, especially towards preservation of high-value forests and reindeer husbandry.
• As SCA manages nearly a fifth of FSC-certified forests in Sweden, the withdrawal is expected to significantly reduce the volume of FSC-certified products on the market.

• SCA is Europe’s largest forest owner and a major timber, pulp and paper manufacturer.
• A long-standing member of FSC, it announced its intention to temporarily pause its FSC Forest Management certification in Sweden starting June 1, 2025, due to a series of systemic challenges it sees within the current FSC framework.
  • Still supports FSC: Although SCA is leaving the Swedish FSC system on June 1st, they will remain a member, keep its Controlled Wood and Chain of Custody certifications, and maintain Forest Management certification in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
  • Hopefully temporary: The pause is intended to protect SCA’s ability to meet climate and sustainability goals, not to leave FSC entirely.
  • To prompt dialogue: SCA is calling for a meeting with FSC and stakeholders in Frankfurt to work on solutions collaboratively.

Conservationists attribute the improvement of the situation to an increase in monitoring efforts, as well as greater scrutiny of palm oil producers operating in the landscape by brands and buyers with zero-deforestation commitments.

The National Forest Stewardship Standard (NFSS) for Indonesia was published recently after years of development. It applies to all types and scales of forest management, including timber, non-timber forest products and ecosystem services. It will become effective on 1 December 2020. The transition window for FSC-certified forests is twelve months and will last until 30 November 2021.

This August, Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF), the national member of PEFC from India, has released the voluntary certification standard for Trees Outside Forests (TOF) in India after three years' development. In the Indian context, TOF refers to agroforestry, urban trees and forests and scattered trees in farmland and homesteads, trees along roads, canals, railway lines and in orchards and gardens. These trees are mostly privately owned, even by small and marginal farmers. TOF resources play a very important role in meeting the demand for wood fibre in India, especially for the pulp and paper, plywood and composite products, handicrafts and furniture industries. Currently, TOF resources are estimated to meet more than 85% of the industrial wood requirements. We anticipate that NCCF will seek the endorsement of TOF certification standard by PEFC and will keep following its development.

The Atlantic Forest is the only biome protected under federal law in Brazil, under the Atlantic Forest Act, 2006. In late 2017, UN Environment and the National Association of Municipal Environment Agencies (ANAMMA) joined the effort to develop a wide-scale conservation project across 17 Brazilian states.

Study shows that 92.2 percent of tree cover loss in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 48.2 percent in the Republic of Congo (ROC) is linked to small-scale shifting cultivation. Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) and World Resources Institute’s Congo team mapped the rural complex of DRC and ROC, with forest fragmentation to differentiate between the rural complex, fragmented forest and undisturbed forest. The DRC and ROC rural complex maps together enable better understanding which loss is caused by shifting cultivation cycling back to previously farmed areas, and which shows new deforestation, degradation or fragmentation.

A report by WWF and ISEAL has stated that standards for supply chains and businesses can help accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while delivering direct benefits for companies and small-scale producers. These benefits can include minimising risk, efficiency gains, and improved transparency throughout the supply chain.

A new CDP study released that a substantive portion, 24% on average, of the revenue of 187 international companies depend upon commodities linked with deforestation, which are cattle products, palm oil, soy and timber products. Moreover, only about 40% of the studied companies have evaluated how the availability or quality of these commodities can impact their business growth strategy over the next five or more years. However, on the positive side, more and more companies become to recognize the benefits in scaling up their forest-protection efforts.

Norway is now the first country committed to the zero deforestation, which precludes deforestation in public procurement. Any companies related to deforestation will not be able to have contract with the Norwegian government. For crops associated with large-scale rainforest destruction like soy, timber, palm oil and beef, if they are to be procured by the government, they will have to be produced in a sustainable way. In addition, now there are recommendations for Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GFPG), the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, to consider biodiversity when making investment decisions.

Researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK analysed data from 824 harvest areas in private and community-owned forests scattered throughout the 123 million hectare Brazilian state of Para, which is the source of almost half of all timber production in the Brazilian Amazon. The results demonstrate that it is crucial to manage yields of selectively-logged forests for the long-term health of forest biodiversity as well as the financial viability of local industries. The analysis shows that even so-called ‘reduced-impact logging’ in tropical forests can rarely be defined as sustainable in terms of forest composition and dynamics in the aftermath logging.

A recent study released by 12 international and Indonesian NGOs reveal that Asia Pulp &Paper (APP) is building one of the world’s largest pulp mills without a sustainable wood supply in South Sumatra. This analysis indicates that the current planted area owned by APP is insufficient in supporting this new mill as well as the 2 existing mills. This report suggests that APP may fail to meet its ‘zero deforestation commitments’ made in 2013 which included ‘100% sustainable plantation wood for pulp’.

The Montagnes Blanches endangered forest has become a focus area for conservation organisations due to threats on its unique features by illegal logging. According to satellite data provided from 2000-2013, almost 50% of the intact forest landscape has been lost or degraded. Furthermore the species, woodland cari-bou within this forest is now being identified as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk 2.

Greenpeace have released a briefing update document on the Montagnes Blanches Endangered Forest. Nearly 50% of the intact forest landscapes have been lost or degraded due to logging, road building, and other industrial development between 2000 -2013. The briefing document covers the recent and current forestry operations in the intact forest landscape and describes the future steps for long-term solutions in the area as well as the role customers should play in forest products.

Over a dozen African countries to tackle Climate change and boost development by restoring 100m hectares of forest across the continent over the next 15 years. The initiative known as the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) was launched during COP21. It will be underpinned by a $1bn investment from the World Bank in 14 African countries over the next 15 years and by $600m of private sector investment over the same period.
The initiative will also be supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the World Resources Institute.