New FSC Forest Stewardship Standards in Chile for Plantations and Native Forests

FSC publishes two new Forest Stewardship Standards that will further promote sustainable forest management in Chile. The standards both become effective on 15 December 2024.

The two published standards include FSC Forest Stewardship Standard for Chile Plantations and FSC Forest Stewardship Standard for Chile Native Forests. These versions of the FSC Forest Stewardship Standards each apply to all ownership types (public, private or other) and all categories of Management Units (including small or low intensity managed forests (SLIMF)). They also include some non-timber forest products.

The process of developing those new versions of standards for Chile began in 2015 and focused on:

• The transfer to FSC Principles and Criteria version 5 and using International Generic Indicators as a starting point;
• The inclusion of specific indicators for Smallholders to give them the opportunity to access FSC certification;
• The inclusion of indicators related to the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Peoples and local communities;
• The inclusion of gender equality indicators;
• The inclusion of new indicators associated with conversion and remediation; and
• The reaffirmation of the commitment and efforts to end deforestation and promote forest conservation and restoration in the country.

A chamber-balanced standards working group conducted the transfer of both standards following a multi-stakeholder input process with companies, NGOs and stakeholders, including representatives of indigenous peoples, traditional peoples, local communities and smallholders. That was aimed at ensuring the applicability of standards to the specific conditions in the country and addressing concerns; and providing equal opportunity for feedback to foster consensus from economic, environmental and social perspectives in order to safeguard sustainability in the future.

The main objectives of these standards are to provide independent evidence of the quality of forest management and to further improve practices in key areas such as conserving Intact Forest Landscapes, conserving the country's biodiversity and protecting the rights of local communities, Indigenous Peoples and traditional peoples. 

Companies in the Chilean timber industry will be able to use the standard to respond to local and international markets that demand certification.

Chile will therefore have a responsible forest management standard of the highest level as of 2024, the year in which FSC celebrates 20 years of FSC in the country. We are especially grateful for the participation and efforts applied in this process to the standard development group, made up of professional specialists with a balance of chambers and to all the other professionals who provided important contributions during the development of these normative documents.

For any queries on the standard, please contact Regina Massai (FSC National Director), rmassai@cl.fsc.org or Macarena Medina (FSC Standard Development Group Coordinator), secretaria@cl.fsc.org.

The FSS for Chile Plantations (Spanish version) can be downloaded here and the FSS for Chile Native Forests (Spanish version) can be downloaded here in the FSC Document Centre. Visit Network Partner’s newsroom for more related news.