Understanding the importance of integrating environmental values into management system of certificate holders contributed to the involvement of representatives of management staff of the branches of Carpathian Forest Office of State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" in FSC training. Good forestry practices in accordance with FSC national forest stewardship standard for Ukraine are primarily a reflection of management decisions. Weakness of a management system increases risks of formal, inconsistent and unsystematic steps in ensuring responsible forest management.
From the presented concept of environmental values, reasonable approaches to formation of a management system to specific steps aimed to integrate environmental value requirements into management system of certificate holders, including documentary support for relevant management processes based on procedures, methods, standard forms, all this was a substantive component of the training.
The activity of the training participants, interested in continuous improvement of knowledge and skills on responsible forest management, has manifested in productive implementation of situational tasks, lively discussions, and mutual enrichment of each other's experience. High-quality illustrations of the training materials, in particular with photos and videos, contributed to immersion in real situations at work. The handouts used by the training participants will be useful for strengthening the documentation of all the processes related to environmental values discussed during the training (identification, assessment of environmental values, monitoring).
Pavlo Kravets, Director of FSC Ukraine, said: "We have made another step forward in implementation of FSC national forest stewardship standard in terms of environmental values. Experienced trainers managed to convey the idea and transfer the knowledge and skills of how integrating environmental values into management systems will contribute to long-term and effective implementation of responsible forest management".