Forest Management Certification

FSC Forest Management certification confirms that a specific area of forest is being managed in line with the FSC Principles and Criteria.

To achieve FSC Forest Management certification, the forest manager or owner contracts with an FSC-accredited Certification Body or joins a Forest Management Group. In either case, the forest is audited to FSC's Forest Management standards.

In the United States, the FSC US Forest Management Standard (v1.0) was formally recommended by the FSC-US Board on May 25, 2010 and approved by FSC International on July 8, 2010. This National Standard pertains to forest management in the United States, with the exclusion of Alaska, Hawaii and the US territories.

This document represents the majority of the requirements for FSC Forest Management certification, though there are other policies with which certificate holders must conform. These include the Policy for Partial Certification, Policy for Association with FSC, policies related to Dispute Resolution, the US Federal Lands Policy, and others that may or may not be referred to in this Standard.

All policies are available from FSC International Document Center.

Regional variation is retained from the previous FSC-US regional standards in Indicators 6.3.g.1, 6.5.e.1, and in Principle 10. Numerous guidance statements throughout the Standard provide regional specificity. A regional map depicting the FSC-US regional delineations can be found in Appendix B of the Standard.

The FSC-US Board of Directors approved an interpretation of Indicator 6.3.g.1.b addressing the use of even-aged management in the Pacific Coast.