This document establishes a process to measure wood being logged in native tropical forest management areas following an approved and documented plan. Such a process includes quantifying and monitoring the harvested area to support the chain of custody assessment, helping to ensure the origin of the logged wood. Wood volume measurement is outside the scope of this document.
This document proposes indicators that can be used to reinforce the level of confidence with regards to the correct origin of the logged wood, particularly when assessing the transport and commercial documentation of wood-based products, by means of a consistency check with what can be observed as occurring in the forest area declared as the origin of native tropical timber. The indicators will serve as an alert of any eventual inconsistency detected.
These indicators are obtained by means of standardized metrics. These metrics are mathematical models that establish a correlation between the area of subtracted vegetation – detected through remote sensing monitoring tools – and the number of extracted trees that generate the amount of declared logged wood.
This document is intended to be used to quantify the impact resulting from native vegetation extraction by selective logging in various tropical forest regions of the world, in order to support the long-term maintenance of these forest assets.
The scope of this document is limited to native tropical forests, i.e. forests naturally originated and formed by native species (or group) in tropical regions. This document does not apply to planted forests, regardless of the species (or group) being native or exotic, as those forests are subject to varied and particular management practices which depend on the geographical conditions and rules of the country in which they are located.
Regarding the limitations of this document, it is not intended to ensure:
-
exact origin (geographical coordinates) of each log;
-
exact volumes of wood extracted from the forest;
-
species (or group) of wood harvested;
-
chain of custody compliance;
-
social and labour compliance of the audited operation;
-
tax compliance of the audited operation.
This document does not focus on, and is not oriented towards, biomass and carbon-balance estimations. This document does not cover any aspects of sustainable forest management and focuses on measurement procedures described above. In addition, it is not intended to be a Management Systems Standard (MSS).
Furthermore, the national legal requirements and international policies are not repeated in this document, including those related to sustainability aspects, as well as those related to traditional and indigenous communities contained in the principles/articles of the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
