On 5-10 February 2023, Uganda will host the Climate and Ecosystem Services (CES) Summit in Fort Portal. The event will encourage knowledge sharing between FSC, Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and other stakeholders on FSC’s Ecosystems Procedure and how governments can use its solutions to develop ecosystem services projects and strengthen biodiversity conservation.

Ecosystems Services at FSC

Ecosystem services are the benefits that people receive from nature. Our society benefits from forests in many ways, including reliable clean water flows, productive soils, and carbon sequestration. In FSC certified forests, valuable ecosystem services are protected - and in 2018, FSC introduced a procedure to demonstrate and communicate the positive effects of responsible forest management. Forest managers who take action to preserve forest ecosystem services as well as those who manage forests responsibly can benefit from these verified positive impacts. This adds business value to their businesses while strengthening biodiversity conservation and environmental protection.

Work around ecosystems services at FSC started in 2011 with the Forest Certification for Ecosystem Services (ForCES) project, supervised by the United Nations Environment Programme and partly funded by the Global Environment Facility. The project focused on establishing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification as a market tool for a wide range of ecosystem services which were not adequately covered for sustainable forest management. Its overall goal was to incentivize the preservation of valuable forest ecosystem services by facilitating access to ecosystem services markets. Piloted in Chile, Nepal, Indonesia, and Vietnam, it demonstrated the applicability of the FSC system in practice and enabled the development of both national and international compliance indicators. Lessons from the project informed FSC to develop its ecosystems procedure in 2018.

UWA becomes an FSC certificate holder

In October 2022, Uganda Wildlife Authority obtained the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest management certificate for three national parks: Bwindi Impenetrable  National Park (BINP), Rwenzori Mountains National Park (RMNP), and Kibale National Park (KNP). The three national parks make up a combined area of 211,100 hectares one of the largest increases in FSC Forest Management (FM) certified area in Eastern Africa in a single year.

Through this knowledge sharing exercise, FSC and UWA will work closely to identify ecosystem services within UWA’s certified national parks. They will develop tools and solutions to document them and communicate their positive impact to forest ecosystem restoration and conservation.