Standards Development

Scope

This International Standard establishes a process to measure vegetation being logged in native tropical management areas following an approved and documented plan. Such a process includes quantifying and monitoring the explored area to support the chain of custody assessment, helping to ensure the origin of the logged wood. It should be noted that the intended use of this International Standard is not for wood volume measurement.This International Standard proposes indicators that can be used to reinforce the level of confidence with regards to the correct origin of the logged wood, particularly when assessing the transport and commercial documentation of wood-based products, by means of a consistency check with what can be observed as occurring in the forest area declared as the origin of native tropical timber. The indicators will serve as an alert of any eventual inconsistency detected.These indicators are obtained by means of standardized metrics. These metrics are mathematical models that establish a correlation between the area of subtracted vegetation – detected through remote sensing monitoring tools – and the number of extracted trees that generate the amount of declared logged wood.This International Standard is intended to be used to measure the impact resulting of native vegetation extraction by selective logging in different world’s tropical regions and biomes, aiming at helping the long-term maintenance of these forest assets.Although forest management should cover all aspects of sustainability, such as respect of the rights of indigenous people, water resource management, area-based conservation measures, etc. this standard does not include these aspects in its scope and focuses on measurement procedures described above.Furthermore, the national legal requirements and international policies are not repeated in the standard, including those related to the above-mentioned sustainability aspects, such as those related to traditional and indigenous communities contained in the principles/articles of the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).During this analysis, a robust dataset is generated describing where harvesting activity has occurred. It is highly recommended that this dataset be used to check the potential overlap of harvesting on protected areas, indigenous lands, the described distributions of IUCN Red List endangered species, and other relevant spatial data layers that exist for the purpose of preventing or observing impacts on conservation areas or areas related to social justice. But, these additional analyses are not required for compliance with this standard. The scope of this International Standard is limited to native tropical forests, i.e., forests naturally originated and formed by native species in tropical regions. This Standard does not apply to planted forests, regardless of the species being native or exotic, as those forests are subject to varied and particular management practices which depend on the geographical conditions and rules of the country in which they are located. Hence, they already have well-established procedures regarding origin identification.Regarding the limitations of this standard, it is not intended to ensure:—       a)  The exact origin (geographical coordinates) of each log;—       b)  Exact volumes of wood extracted from the forest;—       c)  Species of wood harvested;—       d)  Chain of custody compliance;—       e)  Social and labor compliance of the audited operation;—       f)  Tax compliance of the audited operationThis International Standard does not focus on, and is not oriented towards, biomass and carbon-balance estimations. This International Standard does not cover all sustainable issues. In addition, it is also not intended to be a Management Systems Standard (MSS).