Posted on September, 24 2015

We rarely stop to think how much we rely on forests, but we use so many forest products daily – toilet paper, make-up brushes, tires, charcoal, nuts. Many of these products come from some of the most heavily-logged forests on earth, like the Amazon rainforest. 

Twenty-one years ago the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the world’s first independent certification and labelling system for sustainable forest management, was founded by NGOs including WWF, social organizations, governments and leading timber companies to fight deforestation in the Siberia taiga and the Amazon rainforest.

Today, FSC operates in 81 countries on 5 continents and ensures the sustainable management of 185 million forest hectares. The goal of FSC is to ensure not only that forest management is economically viable, but that it observes the rights of workers and local people and protects nature.
 
But what does sustainable management mean? An exhibition that opens at 18:00 h on 25 September in Sofia, Bulgaria in front of the National Theater "Ivan Vazov" will show this by telling the stories of forest workers and inhabitants, including protected species. A forest expert will also walk the visitors through a park and teach them how to recognize different trees. People will win awards by answering a short FSC quiz and enter a lottery to win further prizes.
 
The exhibition is part of the international, annual FSC celebrations that happen on the last Friday of every September -- FSC Friday. The event has been celebrated since 2008 and is gaining popularity each year. In 2014, it was ceelbrated in 30 countries and the hashtag #FSCFriday reached over 1.2 million. Click here for information on this year’s festivities around the globe.

In the Green Heart of Europe that spans the Danube basin and the Carpathians, more than 3.5 million forest hectares have now been certified according to the FSC criteria. This is an area a bit bigger than the size of Belgium. It encompasses some 17% of the forests in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. WWF has helped with certification by training forest officials in biodiversity conservation and responsible forest management, preparing documents listing specific conservation measures for protected species, as well as conducting fieldwork and more. The latter is important for identifying the habitats of protected species and High Conservation Value Forests on the territory of each enterprise. Those areas require additional conservation measures.

FSC is the only certification system that does not allow the conversion of natural forests into forest plantations or lands for other types of use. It is also the only certification system that prohibits GMOs and dangerous pesticides, checks certificate holders at least once a year through an independent controlling body and withdraws the certificate in case of violations.
 
How does FSC change the lives of people living in or working in forests? Read these three stories:

A story of forests and people -- part I
A story of forests and people -- part II
A story of forests and people -- part III