The FSC Principles & Criteria (P&C) describe the essential elements or rules of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable forest management.
There are ten principles setting out this vision; each principle is supported by several criteria that provide a way of judging whether the principle has been met in practice.
The FSC Principles and Criteria were first published in 1994.They were amended in 1996, 1999 and 2001. A comprehensive review commenced in 2009, which resulted in major revisions to the wording – although not the substance – of the Principles and Criteria being proposed in 2011. Voting on the new version closed in January 2012, with the new version of the FSC Principles and Criteria (FSC-STD-01-001 V5-0 D5-0 EN) being approved by 75% of the membership vote.
All ten principles and criteria must be applied in any forest management unit before it can receive FSC certification. The Principles & Criteria apply to all forest types and to all areas within the management unit included in the scope of the certificate.The P&C are applicable worldwide and relevant to forest areas and different ecosystems, as well as cultural, political and legal systems. This means that they are not specific to any particular country or region.
In order to help forest managers, stakeholders and certification bodies interpret them for a specific region, we are developing a set of International Generic Indicators. These are being produced following the most recent revision of the Principles and Criteria in 2012 and are based on the extensive explanatory notes that were developed to support discussion of the revised Principles and Criteria prior to their approval..
In many countries, FSC working groups have developed FSC National Standards. These are based on the Principles and Criteria, and provide locally appropriate indicators for each criterion to show compliance can be demonstrated in that national situation.
