Taking lead in this noble campaign is the Forest Certification Awareness Group (FCAG) formed in 2017 when its founding members sought to harness the knowledge and skills in forest certification acquired from trainings in the UK, with support from Soil Association, and in Kenya with support from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) since 2017.
The FCAG anticipates that Kenya’s forestry sector can fully adopt the certification agenda and prioritize the implementation of Forest management certification as a matter of policy. To accomplish this, the FCAG develops and deploys robust strategies to create awareness and lobby for support from state and non-state actors to embrace forest certification using standards like that of FSC.
With 20 members, (7 women and 13 Men), the FCAG is already affiliated to prominent like-minded organizations and institutions including Kenya Forest Service (KFS), University of Nairobi, Kenya Forest Research Institute, Farm Forestry smallholder producers Association of Kenya (FF SPAK), Green Peace Africa –Kenya, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) and the East Africa Wildlife Society (EAWS) among others. At the core of the group’s priorities are building partnerships with country-based NGOs e.g. WWF-Kenya, Nature Kenya and The Nature Conservancy; the private sector e.g. Kenya Association of Manufacturers and Kenya Private Sector Alliance, as well as government agencies e.g. the Ministry of Environment to strengthen its technical and financial support, lobby government’s buy-in, leverage on the ongoing government programs in environment and forestry; and private sector business campaigns. The group also plans to expand its membership by mobilizing additional 30 key stakeholders, including those who recently completed their certification training course for a countrywide coverage, and to pursue a registration process to be a legal entity and formalize its operations.
During its short existence, the FCAG has registered solid achievements including active participation in the development of the FSC Interim National Standard for Kenya, which is due for approval upon submission by Soil Association in 2020; presented a paper on: ‘Barriers and drivers of forest certification in Kenya’ at the annual conference organized by the Forest Society of Kenya (FSK) in 2019, and has held several awareness meetings amongst the membership.
Going forward, the FCAG is taking steps to strengthen its working relationship with the FSC office in East Africa, to participate in developing and disseminating relevant information to benefit the government, forestry businesses, associations including smallholders and communities and the youth, and to write informative and educative articles on responsible forest management and certification for target audiences.
Besides awareness creation, the FCAG members are confident to initiate the formation of the Standard Development Group (SDG) in future, to develop the FSC National Forest Stewardship Standard for Kenya, hence, are very keen to learn from the experiences of forest managers and owners in implementing the requirements of the Interim National Standard once it becomes operational.
For more information about the Forest Certification Awareness Group (FCAG): ogallojunior@gmail.com +254 787 484 858.