Public announcement

Stakeholder Consultation on Tanzania National Forest Stewardship

Standards (NFSS) based on FSC.

About FSC
The Forest Stewardship Council A.C. (FSC) was established in 1993, as a follow-up to the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit at Rio de
Janeiro, 1992) with the mission to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and
economically viable management of the worlds forests.
FSC is an international organization that provides a system for voluntary accreditation and
independent third-party certification. This system allows certificate holders to market their
products and services as the result of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and
economically viable forest management. The FSC also sets standards for the development and
approval of FSC Stewardship Standards which are based on the FSC Principles and Criteria. In
addition, FSC sets standards for the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies (also known
as certification bodies) that certify compliance with FSCs standards.
Based on these standards, FSC provides a system for certification for organizations seeking to
market their products as FSC certified.

Innovative Approaches
While working on the NFSS, the Tanzanian SDG has taken into consideration on FSC mission built
on: Environmentally appropriate forest management that ensures that the production of
timber, non-timber products and ecosystem services maintains the forests biodiversity,
productivity, and ecological processes. Socially beneficial forest management helps both local
people and society at large to enjoy long term benefits and also provides strong incentives to
local people to sustain the forest resources and adhere to long-term management plans.
Economically viable forest management means that forest operations are structured and
managed so as to be sufficiently profitable, without generating financial profit at the expense of
the forest resource, the ecosystem, or affected communities.

Stakeholder Consultation on Tanzania National Forest Stewardship

Standards (NFSS)
Tanzanian stakeholders, in May 2015, have agreed to establish National Standard Developement
Group (SDG) to work on developing National Forest Stewardship Standards (NFSS) based on FSC
International Generic Indicators (IGIs). To date, national stakeholders have managed to produce
draft National FSC Standards with facilitation of the National Standards Development Group

(SDG). The draft FSC standards have adopted and adapted the new IGIs taking on board the
revised P&C as indicated in the version 5 of the FSC-STD-01-004 V1 EN FSC International Generic
Indicators (IGIs).
According to FSC procedures, (FSC-60-006) a website (http://www.tafmp.co.tz ) has been set up
as open source for interested parties and stakeholders who can comment upon and discuss the
proposed draft standards. It is on this basis that Tanzania SDG, takes this opportunity to inform
that the public consultation of the first NFSS draft open to all stakeholders. The standards are
available on request. Please contact the SDG Cordinator: Isaac Malugu. Email:
imalugu@wwftz.org; Skype ID: isaacmalugu; Mobile +255 784 775877

Public Stakeholders Consultations

The following public consultation meetings are planned on the following dates in the following regions.

Zonal and Venue

National
Workshop
NFSS Zonal Lindi
workshops

NFSS
National
workshop

When

Participants

8th February Southern zone: Mtwara,

2016
Ruvuma and Coast regions

Lindi

and

Iringa

16th February Southern highlands zone : Mbeya, Iringa

2016
and Morogoro regions

Tanga

Northern
zone:
Tanga,
Arusha,
Kilimanjaro and Manyara regions
Selected national stakeholders from
various zones will be invited.

19th February
2016
Dar
es 29th February
Salaam
2016

Please confirm your availability to contact given above.