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DEVELOPMENT AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF A PAFC CERTIFICATION SYSTEM FOR THE CONGO BASIN: OPENING OF THE SECOND PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION STANDARD TOMORROW SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2020!!!

22.05.2020

This second public consultation will be open for a period of 30 days from tomorrow Saturday the 23rd of May 2020 and will be closed on Monday the 22nd of June 2020. The public consultation is open to all stakeholders of forest management in the Congo Basin interested in participating to the PAFC Congo Basin certification standards development process.

At the end of November 2019, the first regional workshop to develop PAFC Congo Basin certification standards was held in Libreville. During this workshop, stakeholders from Gabon, Cameroon and Congo, creating a working group, exchanged, discussed and agreed by consensus on a first version of the sustainable forest management standard. Following this workshop, a first 63-day public consultation took place, providing an opportunity for all interested stakeholders to participate in the process of developing the PAFC Congo Basin certification standards. At the end of this public consultation, 168 comments on the requirements of the sustainable forest management standard were made by 17 stakeholders from industry, international organizations active in the field of natural resource management, education and research, civil society and consultants. Following the standard development process, two experienced auditors conducted a comprehensive review of the standard and its annexes through a pilot test. They analyzed the standard to determine if the requirements were applicable and auditable, and provided the working group with comments and suggestions to improve it. In preparation for the second public consultation, a meeting of the members of the Forum has been organized to adjust the standard based on the comments and suggestions received during the first public consultation and the pilot test results.

This second public consultation will be open for a period of 30 days from tomorrow Saturday the 23rd of May 2020 and will be closed on Monday the 22nd of June 2020. The public consultation is open to all stakeholders of forest management in the Congo Basin interested in participating to the PAFC Congo Basin certification standards development process.

Forest management stakeholders in the Congo Basin are therefore invited to comment on the sustainable forest management standard available here. The paper version of the standard is available upon request at national PAFCs offices in Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville and Gabon.

It should be noted that indicators 4.1.2 and 7.3.2, as well as some elements of the Appendixes 1 and 2, have not yet been validated by the working group. They will re-examine these indicators at the end of the public consultation, taking into account the comments made by stakeholders.

Comments should be made on the feedback form available here.

For each commented requirement (indicator), the number and the text of the comment subject indicator should be reported, the comment(s) and the improvement proposition(s) will be written in the corresponding columns of the feedback form in Excel sheet named « indicators ».

As regards the comments on the annexes of the standard submitted for this second public consultation, the page number of the text subject of the comment should be indicated, write the comment(s) and the improvement proposition(s) in the corresponding columns of the feedback form in Excel sheet named « annexes ».

The completed feedback form must be sent to the following email address: coordination@pafc-certification.org . An acknowledgment of receipt will be sent to confirm that your comments have been received. After 72 hours, if you have not received an acknowledgment email, please report it to the email address coordination@pafc-certification.org