The main areas for collaboration under this agreement are training and capacity building, including strengthening auditing and certification capacity, technical collaboration, knowledge sharing, and promotion and outreach.
“Through this partnership, we hope to strengthen technical capacity and competence across the African continent, creating enabling conditions for forest management and chain of custody certification,” said Liviu Amariei, Lead Auditor and Trainer at ASTRAcademy.
“Over the next five years, FSC Africa and ASTRAcademy will engage key stakeholder groups, such as the forestry and forest-based industry, forestry professionals and consultants, certification bodies and auditors, academia, NGOs, the conservation community, and others, to identify training needs and respond with targeted programmes aimed at improving awareness, knowledge, skills, and competence to support the implementation of the FSC normative framework.”
For Peter Alele, FSC Regional Director for Africa, this partnership comes at a time when the Zamba Heritage Initiative is receiving growing endorsement from government entities and organisations across the continent. “Capacity building will be key to our ambition to bring 30 million hectares of forest under sustainable forest management and restore 5 million hectares of degraded land by 2036,” said Peter Alele.
“Our partnership with ASTRAcademy is aimed at developing the next generation of forest stewards who will lead the continent’s responsible forestry agenda and help support the protection of our forests for future generations.”
FSC Africa and ASTRAcademy will collaborate with other organisations in the FSC community to support these activities and accelerate the uptake of FSC certification across Africa.