Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) executive director Heiko Liedeker and his international board will be in New Zealand in March to meet the working party putting together the country’s draft national certification standard.
New Zealand’s proposed National Standard for Certification of Plantation Forest Management has been designed to meet certification criteria of the FSC and other certification schemes. A draft standard was released in December for three months of public consultation.
The working party invited the FSC board to hold its first meeting of 2003 in New Zealand and the visit is being subsidised by the forest industry to enable board members to meet some of New Zealand’s key stakeholders.
The FSC board will visit a sustainably managed indigenous forest in the South Island and discuss issues involved in developing a management standard that would eventually enable the FSC brand to be applied to exported native wood products.
