Collection of Policy Responses to Situation in Ukraine
To support certificate holders in Ukraine to maintain their certification, FSC has also published a set of derogations and interpretations. They are applicable in circumstances in which an on-site audit is not possible or viable due to the organization being located in or requiring travel through a region with a demonstrated security risk for the life or health of auditors. The collection of derogations include measures such as options to postpone audits and allowing remote audits for low-risk scenarios or hybrid audits, depending on the risk assessment conducted by certification bodies. The collection can be found here.
Certificates in Ukraine conflict areas suspended
Considering the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, FSC has revised the controlled wood national risk assessment for Ukraine.
Two key risks were identified in relation to the invasion and connected to the zones with armed conflict:
a. illegality due to the lack of enforcement of Ukrainian legislation, and
b. conflict timber, due to the Russian army able to use any forest resources for their own purposes.
These risks were considered as infeasible to mitigate and hence, the controlled material cannot originate from these conflict zones.
The revision of the Ukrainian risk assessment was conducted based on the recently issued FSC-ADV-60-002-01, which subsequently means that, according to FSC-ADV-20-001-12, the corresponding forest management and chain-of-custody certificates located in the conflict zones will need to be suspended within 30 days from the approval of the risk assessment, as well as in cases new conflict zones are identified. The risk assessment was approved on 4 April 2022, so affected certificates must be suspended before 4 May 2022.
Identifying the conflict zones is not a simple activity, considering the unpredictability of war. FSC requests certification bodies, certificate holders and other stakeholders to make this assessment to the best of their ability. FSC has identified three categories of information sources regarding the location of conflict zones:
1. Public sources[1]
2. The State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine (for state-owned forests)
3. Directly from local authorities within Ukraine.
Stakeholders are invited to approach FSC with questions on these measures at psu.cis@fsc.org.
*Sources include, but are not limited to:
State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine - https://forest.gov.ua/
The State Emergency Service of Ukraine - https://dsns.gov.ua/
Ministry of Defenсe of Ukraine - https://www.mil.gov.ua/
Ministry of environment protection and natural resources of Ukraine - https://mepr.gov.ua/
State Bureau of Investigation - https://dbr.gov.ua/
The Security Service of Ukraine - https://ssu.gov.ua/
The Armed Forces of Ukraine - https://www.zsu.gov.ua/
Liveuamap - https://liveuamap.com/
National police - https://www.npu.gov.ua/
State Border Guard Service of Ukraine - https://dpsu.gov.ua/
By materials of FSC International on 04.04.2022
https://fsc.org/en/newsfeed/certificates-in-ukraine-conflict-areas-suspended