What Function did the 2018 Controlled Wood Regional Meetings Serve?

During development of the FSC US Controlled Wood National Risk Assessment (NRA), the FSC US Board of Directors recognized that in the context of the United States, most certificate holders do not have information about the specific sites of origin for all of the non-certified materials that they are using, nor complete details about the supply chains from which they source the materials. This is due to typical procurement practices, extremely complex supply chains, and concerns regarding Antitrust issues, which together make this knowledge almost impossible to acquire for most certificate holders in the US. Therefore, the Board directed the NRA working group to develop an alternative approach for control measures and mitigation in the US. The resulting approach explores options for how a certificate holder can reduce the risk of sourcing from objectionable places by implementing mitigation actions within the landscape of the specified risk area that will either, as needed: a) reduce threats to high conservation values (HCVs) from forest management activities; and/or b) reduce the rates of forest conversion across the landscape – thereby reducing the risk of sourcing from places where these objectionable activities are occurring. 

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However, the Board also recognized that it would be necessary to bring as many perspectives as possible into the development of these mitigation actions to help ensure that they would be as practical and as effective as possible. To address this need, the Board developed the concept of Controlled Wood Regional Meetings that would periodically bring together diverse stakeholders to collaboratively develop a set of mitigation options for each of the specified risk issues identified in the NRA, and then adapt them as needed over time.