FSC requirements updated to enforce decision to reject FSC material from Russia and Belarus
Controlled wood (CW) requirements explicitly require an assessment of whether a country’s forest sector is associated with armed violent conflict as listed in Indicator 2.1 of CW category 2 of FSC-PRO-002a: “2.1. The forest sector is not associated with violent armed conflict, including that which threatens national or regional security and/or is linked to military control.“ FSC concluded that a strong association between the forest sector and government exists in Russia and Belarus. Combined with their government’s military action, ‘specified risk’ had to be concluded. FSC further concluded that this risk cannot be mitigated by any other control measure except to altogether avoid source material from these areas. To implement this credibly in the FSC system, shorter timelines were required in addition to providing a mandate for FSC International to make changes to such risk assessments and control measures directly.