FSC reflected in scientific and professional literature

Forest Stewardship Council
Globally, FSC certified forests represent in early 2008 the equivalent of 7% of production forests.
Table 1: FSC in figures (from FSC certificate database)
FSC in figures
end end Sept. 2008
2000 2006
Number of FSC members 357 647 811
Number of FSC National Initiatives 19 39 53
Regional offices 0 4 1
+ 2 National Offices
+ 1 Network Manager
Number of certification bodies 5 16 19
Forest area certified (million ha.) 24.4 82.6 105.4
FSC Global South* 6.1 41.4 52.6
FSC Global North* 18.3 41.2 52.8
Number of forest management certificates 284 860 944
FSC Global South 94 432 483
FSC Global North 190 428 461
Number of chain-of-custody certificates 1’138 5’178 11’111
FSC Global South 323 1’554 2’582
FSC Global North 815 3’624 8’529
No. of countries where FSC certificates are issued
49 73 97
No. of approved forest management standards 5 26 29
* FSC Global North and Global South refers to the OECD categories: FSC Global South includes not only all the
OECD developing countries, but also the countries in transition from the former Soviet Union, while countries like
Australia and New Zealand, situated geographically in the South are economically part of the “FSC Global North”.
FSC has led the way in defining responsible forest stewardship and in cutting across historic
barriers to create new levels of collaboration and shared commitment to forest conservation
across social, environmental and economic interests. An extensive body of scientific literature
has been developed over the years, which examines the impacts of certification in general. A
smaller number of papers focus more explicitly on cases of FSC’s impact on forest management
and on markets dealing with FSC certified products. The literature covers a broad range
of issues including influence of certification on community forestry, impacts on workers, impacts
on health and safety, and stakeholder involvement, why operations certify, impacts on
accessing markets, certification as a policy tool and the creation and effectiveness of nongovernment
regulatory systems. This paper tries to make FSC’s impact on the global forest
debate and forest stewardship worldwide more visible, through highlighting the findings of
researchers conducting FSC-related studies all over the world.
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