Webinar given on 11 June 2024 as part of the international public consultation on the Lithuanian forest certification system.
so good morning uh everyone again on today’s public consultation webinar we are going to Lithuania one of the last uh countries in the the last country in the Baltic region who will join the PFC family we are very happy to have this uh webinar uh today the webinar has three agenda items I will have a short introduction about PFC uh International who for those who are not familiar yet fully with our system how we operate and then of course uh the main item for today is the presentation of the Lithuanian Forest certification system I have alfredas here with me uh on behalf of the center of sustainable Forest management and as always at the end uh we will have a question and answer session my name is Hubert H Heiser from PFC International and I’m very happy to be your host today so let’s get uh started with p f c International uh the acronym stands for program for the endorsement of forest certification systems we are an alliance of independent National Forest certification systems Under the Umbrella of PFC International but here I need to mention that we do have already some Regional initiatives in Africa and in the Balkans um all these Forest certification systems are based on pfcs sustainability Benchmark standard like the sustainable Forest management standard or they adopt International documentation like the chain of custody standard this is a voluntary mechanism promoting sustainable Forest management through independent thirdparty certification and we are very proud that we are the world largest for certification system covering around 300 million hectares of forest as of today and we are the provider of free quarters of the world certified timber here you can see your Global coverage what is important maybe to see uh is uh that uh the countries which are marked with uh dark green these are or PFC members which are maintaining endorsed systems this is a bit outdated uh uh map already because for example in Latin America Guyana just recently endorsed the their system the light green shows those countries where we currently do not have indoor systems and the many blue dots on the map shows that where we operate chain of custody certificates so just couple of sentences about the Lithuanian Forest certification system after years of uh intensive and robust development process uh the system was submitted in May so last month for assessment aiming for the first endorsement this assessment then we check that uh the documentation meets the PFC framework documentation this assessment will be carried out by an independent assessor yet to be appointed uh and part of this assessment process uh we are uh giving 60 days as part of the international public consultation that everybody can access the complete system documentation it’s available on our website um and all of the comments submitted uh during these 60 days will be considered by uh the assessor during the assessment process and we’ll be included in the assessment report uh so the deadline for submitting comments is 10th of August uh this is the day when we have uh the deadline for the international public consult and we encourage everyone to take a look uh at the Lithuanian documentation and share with you share with us uh if you have something to say about it this is it very quickly from my side uh because the main item for today is clearly the Lithuanian Forest certification system and I’m very very glad that I have alfredas here with me I sto sharing my screen and I allow you Alfred us to take the floor and guide us through the forest certification system in Lithuania thank you you are still muted Alfred us please unmute yourself sry thank you uh hello my name is alred galona I represent Center of sustainable Forest management which is situated in Kos and we as hubber mentioned we presented for all documentation for assessment and endorsement of leanian forest certification scheme so I will shortly just share my screen here we go so introduction to the leanian forest certification scheme uh some Bas basic statistics you see where lithan lithan is so country areas 3.43 million hectares country populations 2.8 million people Forest land area 2 and 2 million hectares Forest coverag is 38 33 and 8.8 percentage uh Forest Area per capita is 0.78 hectares so growing stock is total 577 million cub CU M uh average is 2,2 269 cubic m per Hector annual increment is about 20 million cubic met major stands occupies half practically half a million of hectares uh volume is 167 million cubic met and per Hector is 3 358 cubic m per Hector annual lest is about 10 11 million cubic M and annual that trees is about 4 million cubic meters uh so we start uh lania have the forest management regimes this Forest names Forest groups so you see that uh it is four main main main groups strict Reserve is first one the protected areas divided divides into two sub part ecosystem protection forest and recreational Forest the third group is protective it’s water body protection and and and similar and Commercial one as a fourth group both a and for B it’s normal cutting gauge and B short cutting gauge Plantation for which in lania practically only starts to to appear so you see the percentage of the area that 75% of of the forest is on the forest of the commercial forest and protective and strict reserves have 23 24 about 25 percentage of the forest land uh protected areas in lania is the you see the the the scheme uh national parks um State reserves uh strict reserves regional parks and Municipal reserves so you see the percentage um most of them are regional parks and state reserves it’s more than 75% national parks sing it’s 20 20% also so about 5 95,000 entered the protected areas in 2020 hectars of forest areas about 27 percentage of forest land area protected areas and Natura 2000 Network objects together occupy about 681 th000 hectar in the country Forest it’s about 31% of the total Forest Area I want to stress that NATA 20 000 is not only on the on these protected areas they are these objects also are in commercial Forest too Forest resources coverage of lethania increases every year but growth rates are several times lower if we compare with the period of 2000 2006 currently country’s Forest cover is about 3 33.8% or 35.1% if you have it according to the international methodology so you see the the graph the forecast for 2024 35 percentage uh it’s from the program of government we will see if it can be reached it’s complicated I guess since 2000 the year 2000 Forest cover has increased by 3 percentage points from 3 3.7 uh Forest ownership in theia practically is 5050 50 is under State Forest of State importance and others are private forest or reserved for private U reserved for restitution of private property the for state forest forest of State importance are managed by State Forest Enterprise and others are under how to say private private owners are managing them having some Comm cooperatives and and so on so the if to see that to look at the dominant three species prevailing three species three species is in it’s Pine stands and and and and Spruce stands so they take 50% of of the whole three species prevailing three species so others are next this bch 20 practically 22 22% others have the smaller parts of of of of trees in the forest if to to look at the map how the forest are situated in liania so you can see that the the southeast part is mainly Pine stands prevailing Pine stands in the west part is more prevailing mixed Spruce and desos desos trees and the central part is practically desid those desid those three species prevailing here in liania a growing stock volume the volumes of both all ages and maor stands in increased due to the country policy of moderate use of Forest for wood production we are in the top European countries according to the volume of food accumulated in the forest STS you can see the graphs how it changed in all STS 2003 2023 and separately it’s major stands 2003 and two 2023 so area of major stands has increased more than 1,000 hectares up to practically one half a million in some cases it’s a it’s a problem because the increment here is not increasing very fast so the problem with how to see how to change them into more productive forest for the young for the young Forest just to get the balanced use of of young and Ma between young and Ma stands uh Forest resources are inv inventoried and planned the main operations as Forest inventory delineation of forest sites description of stands determination of various Forest parameters parameters regulated by special instruction second phase is planning of activities so planning of forest management thinnings PR commmercial thinnings final cuttings the restoration of forest protection recreational measures landscape information and Etc so planning can only be carried out by Specialists with special competencies for example you can see in the next slide uh how this is the cover of State Forest management Forest management plan for this for this for this kind of job uh The Specialist must have at least master degree in forestry and five years of of and five years of um preparing the forest management plans for private owners so you see that this Forest management plan s calculating annual cutting budget planning of silver culture operations economic assessment planning forest fire prevention environmental and biodiversity issues C Forest planning game management and and so on so I I want only to explain that State Forest management project and private Forest management project is different because of the scope you must understand that in the sayia that uh Forest Private Forest management project must be it is a must promp three hectares of property so you can’t fulfill all uh how to say uh the fulfill all Forest Management in three hectars and uh to compare in comparison the state forest uh uh unit of 3,000 30,000 hectares so but of course and private owners also must have all to check preparing this project must check all the biodiversity issues uh red book U objects and and so on so just the scope is is must smaller in in private Forest management projects uh here’s just a graph of roundwood procurement so you can see that it’s the date uh the statistics is from 2020 uh the lack of information now because of State Forest Services uh will produce the 2002 to 20 2022 only this this uh this autumn so practically the usage is stable I want to also to explain that Lithuania have the regulation that uh government of of Lithuania is signing the annual Forest cut for fiveyear period area and volume it is U it is U such regulation so practically everything is controlled and you see that now stability of of cuttings especially in the state State Forest is about 4 million cubic meters per year uh in private Forest is a little bit diff from year to year but it’s most of of it is about 7 million cubic met it is uh meable volume volume sorry not growing stock amount yeah the of wood industry products mostly you can see from this graph that the furniture products are the main consumers of wood in Lithuania W round Wood of Lithuania and now we start about for certification current situation in the such at 1 half 1.1 million heor certified state owned Forest by FSC standard in liania area in private on in private Forest by certified by FSC is about 167 hectars and from that amount 1, 15,000 hectars is a group certificate so chain of custody 400 71 certificate by FSC so you can understand that the total dominance in the market is by FSC FC certificates in theia have only chain only for chain of custody for today we have 23 in the beginning of this year maybe some certificates are is coming during this time but difference is huge and we are we will have to do a a amount of huge amount of job to to just to to to change try to change this situation which is which is now in theia with certification so certification system scheme have such documentation we you saw the list standard setting and revision procedures group Forest management certification rules and procedures sustainable Forest management standard certification and accreditation procedures isurance of PSC trademark usage licenses Pro procedures notification of certification B is operating chain of cust and Forest management certification description of BFC liian Forest certification system BFC trademark rules which is international standard chain of custody of forest and tree based products also and requirements for certification boders operating certification against the PFC International chain of cust standard together with this we also we this provided the checklists of of several of these documents just for for sure assessment scope of the standard the lfs lfd will be applicable at the territory of Lithuanian Republic all documentation of the system complies with the Benchmark standard of PFC 2003 2018 version as well as the existing legal framework related to the forest Management in the country so for in the liian Republic sustainable Forest management standard contains 10 criterian groups 54 criterian and one indicator uh the process Lan forest and land Owners Association announc the beginning of the process for the development of criteria and indicators for sustainable Forest management according to PFC requirements text of announcement was issued on foil website in the beginning of this of 2023 proposal for standard development it was the at the beginning of the process the first document that was developed was proposal for standard development this document was approved by F board also in 2023 uh standard setting and revision procedures for the purpose of development PFC standard setting and revision procedures was one of the basic documents to be developed this document was announced on the website of the web page of the fall and it was defined all form formal steps and procedures for the process not only for certifying certified bodies but also for interested stakeholders as well this document includes also complaint and appeal procedures it’s also this document was also approved by B in 2023 one of the basic steps in drafting the National Standard is stakeholders mapping the purpose of step is to provide opportunity for all interest interested stakeholders to participate in the standard development including e affected and disadvantage stakeholders the M the mapping of stakeholders was implemented according to the requirements of the PFC LT standard setting and revision procedures the stakeholders map in gania was identified at total 53 stakeholders the mapping process was included division of stakeholders into major groups Forest owners business and industry NGS scientific Community workers and labor units Union in institution and managers of protected areas and others after preparation of stakeholders mapping documented its approval the announcement of the of the process and invitation to stakeholders was executed according to the requirements of FC LT standard setting and revision procedures all identified stakeholders were invited to join the process by direct email communication on 12th of June of 2023 and phone calls in addition to that on the same day there was announcement in in public web page site of f after this 15 stakeholders were are nominated their representatives in the Pro in the process all proposed nominations for participation in the working group were accepted in the June July of 2023 here the list of representatives from each stakeholders group so we see that the main main main representatives are from owners and business and investment proportional of the importance scientific and Technologies ngos trade unions and state organization was represented Ed by state service of protected area the process in the working group drafting the content of the National sfm Standard the process of drafting the standard was officially started on third of August 2023 when the first work session organized in coners was held in total within the process there we organized six sessions it takes time from s of August up to 222nd of September the process of consensus was received according to the standard setting and revision procedures the process of public consultation on the content of the draft National stand uh sustainable Forest management standard was launched on 28th of September of 2023 F has sent email invitations together with a draft version of standard to all in identified stakeholders in the stakeholder mapping the invitation was also announced on the website of F and on the website of minister of environment and state service of protected area the public consultation was lasting until 27th of November of 2023 and no obje objections or any other comments or complaints we received as because it was the it is the first the first standard so it’s needed second public consultation so it was announced on 19th of December 2023 on the website of file and information was sent to the all participants via mail the same day the public consultation was lasting until 18th of January 2024 one letter was received from forest Research Center with some editorial suggestions working group during the Mee their meeting accepted these suggestions and made correction in the draft version of sustainable Forest management standard the pilot testing was arranged by Skype on 16th of April 2024 after receiving commands from forest certification experts working group accepted recommendations and made Corrections in the draft version of a sustainable management for sustainable Forest management standard the working group for the development of the PFC standard proposed the adoption of the standard acceptance was officially confirmed by the decision of the sustainable Forest Management Center as NB in 20 in 23rd of April 2024 and on the thir 2nd of may we presented all needed documentation for uh endorsement and auditing through the PFC International the sustainable Forest management standard uh is a part of PFC Forest certification scheme the purpose of the standard is to promote the sustainable development and management of leanian forest using Forest certification focusing the owners attention to the economic ecological social and cultural aspects of forest management the standard is reviewed at least every 5 years within with the participation of f stakeholders and and updated as necessary products with the p PFC certificate and label provide a guarantee that the raw materials used in the production come from the sustainably managed Forest the PFC standard Works through the forest supply chain ensuring that wood and non- Timber Forest Products are produced and in accordance with ecological social and ethnical standards uh sustainable Forest Management in lania is carried out in such a way and to such an extent that the Vitality biological diversity productivity and the generative capacity of the forest and its potential to perform ecological economic social and cultural functions now and in the future are preserved without harming other ecosystems the forest management standard is designed in such a way that ensuring compilance with the PFC requirements does not become only a burden for its holder instead the forest management standards should contribute to the promotion of sustainable for sustainably well forestry and enable its users to obtain added value technical documents are prepared to demonstrate compilance with PFC requirements and should help improve performance there is uh as I mentioned further that the structure of the standard is based on 10 groups of criteria that corresponds to the main internationally sustainable International sustainably sustainability criteria of PFC so the first criterian group maintains maintenance and enhancement of the functions of forest and ecosystems taking into account the role of the forest in the carbon sequestration cycle it has three criteria and four indicators second group activities aimed at maintaining the Integrity vitality and E ecological functionality of the forest ecosystem it takes six Criterion 21 indicator Wood Products three Criterion six indicators conservation maintenance restoration and or enhancement of biological diversity in the forest four criterias and six indicators maintaining and strengthening the role of the forest as an environment regulating ecosystem 10 criterias in 27 indicators maintaining or enhancing the cultural social and spiritual functions of the forest for criteria and eight indicators group seven economic value of the forest seven criteria and 11 indicators restoration preservation maintenance and or enhancement of non-timber products and their value six criteria and 18 indicators employee rights and working conditions four criteria and 10 indicators performance evaluation seven criteria and 18 indicators here you’ll see just a short one of past three uh how it look like what what kind of Criterion they are I don’t know if it is needed to to read me for them but you can see how how what aims are puted into creian the Fe FMS standard describes the criter indicators to be implemented by its holder in order to demonstrate compilance with the principles of sustainable forestry Forest owners or managers acting according to the established criteria Ure sustainable Forest management and confirm compellence with the standards requirement the Criterion indicators presents in the PMS standard determines the minimum requirement required activities that prove compilance with the requirements and ensure the effective of the activity standard holder must keep records of their activities to provide as an Evidence of compilance when required so thanks for your attention now if you have questions please I try to answer them thank you very much alas for this uh very good overview of how the Lithuanian Forest are structured and how you responded to this with the uh sfm standard in Lithuania um I already saw one question in the in the Q&A and that was that during the consultation process was there any consultation with the certification bodies certification bodies doesn’t exist in lania it was a situation how to say uh Forest uh oh Forest Owners Association of lania was this certifying body because NGB was not established at at the beginning it’s it be consulted with u people from FFC International REM and they suggest that uh NGB will appear in the practically in the during the public consultation so certifying bodies certifying B still is open for to to to to get it’s it place all right okay excellent um and I don’t see anything else for now uh but it’s more like a comment that there are certification bodies for FFC and the chain of custody thank you very much uh vas uh for this comment uh maybe just from from my side um uh after the question that um you mentioned that basically it’s 50/50 about the ownership in state and in uh in private um forest and I just wanted to ask you that uh in uh uh the long run do you think that uh the private forestry in the group set up would be something which is interesting for the PFC system in lania or you’re aiming for the State Forest more um it is the tricky situation um everybody who wants to be certified at the moment have FSC certificate so in case that for example State State Forest Enterprise will have want to have a double certification so of course they will be the now the the biggest preference but together we will work uh and to to to organize the group certification I think that because the I don’t mention that the average um area of of of private but own ownership is about 3.4 five hectares only so no it’s not very small thing and small real estate so it is the the this group certification is an issue for them so we will try to to use it and of course the chain of custody I think also will be there right the the option right no thank you for that yeah because they are already asking yeah about yeah no I’m I’m very I’m very sure that they asking for uh these possibilities because PFC uh was founded by small holders and I think this enabling condition the group certification is something which I could imagine it it may be a bit more the demanding in terms of getting people together especially in uh in the eastern part of of Europe but uh but I think it’s uh it’s really worth the effort because especially with all the upcoming um regulation being place the UDR and so on I think that’s something where we can provide an added value as well so I don’t see any any anything else in the Q&A for now so I think that there’s nothing left to say uh that I will certainly watch it again because you presented so interesting information about the particular Forest structure which I found very diverse actually in theia you would you wouldn’t believe in the first place but thank you so much alfredas for joining us today and walking us through the Lithuanian Forest certification system thank you for the others who joined us uh today uh I would just re remind everyone that we have the public consultation open until uh 10th of August so you have a chance to look at the complete Lithuanian uh Forest certification documentation and in addition uh on our YouTube channel now we have 40 of similar uh webinars where you can uh learn about the other countries and how PF operate in the other countries and with this again thank you so much and I wish you a nice rest of the day goodbye