True to its values of participation, democracy and equity, FSC, with the financial support of the PPECF, has been supporting a process since 2015 to contextualize its International Generic Forest Management Indicators in four countries in the Congo Basin. In each country, the process is led by a group of independent experts composed equally of representatives of the three economic, social and environmental chambers who are part in the decision-making mechanisms within the FSC.
Each national process involves alternating several phases of deliberations on indicators in the process of contextualization, a field test in real conditions in a forest concession and two phases of consultations with a wide range of stakeholders in forest management.
In 2019, five Standard Development Group (SDG) meetings and three stakeholder consultation workshops were held in Cameroon, Congo and Gabon. The objectives of these meetings and workshops were to integrate the sub-regional indicators on Intact Forest Landscapes and the indicators of the version 2 of the Generic International Indicators into the three national standards, to collect and process comments and observations from stakeholders and, specifically for Cameroon, to consult the members of the Cameroon Consultative Forum on the adequacy of the proposed indicators for small forest operations such as community forests.
With the technical facilitation of FSC Congo Basin, these activities resulted in the submission in late June 2019 to FSC International for review and approval of the pre-final versions of the Cameroon and Congo FSC National Standards and the finalization of the pre-final version of the FSC Gabon National Standard. The submission of this pre-final version of Gabon's National FSC Standard to FSC International for review and approval will take place before the end of December 2019.