The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has moved to increase the amount of FSC certified forest globally.
It aims to do this through the endorsement of a new standard for the development of national and regional FSC stewardship standards.
Until now only FSC-accredited national initiatives have been able to develop and submit a national standard to FSC for approval.
But many were submitted without an accredited national initiative in the country, causing considerable delays in the development and approval of national standards, which impacted on the level of forests being certified by FSC.
The new standard, already endorsed, allows national and regional standards to be developed and approved by FSC without the need for to accredit a national initiative.
