The SAFAS Forest Management Standard is under revision. This is part of the mandatory re-endorsement process in which PEFC requires that national forest management standards be reviewed and if needed revised every 5 years.
The working group for the revision of the SAFAS Forest Management standard invites you to participate in the process by commenting on the Enquiry Draft of SAFAS 4 V2 Forest Management Standard.
We would appreciate it if you could study the attached enquiry draft and provide us with suggestions for improvement. Generally the changes should be made at the indicator level, but if you suggest improvements to the Criteria or any other part of the standard, we will consider those as well. You can record your comments on the template provided. All comments make will be considered, noted, and a report drafted explaining how the comments were handled by the Working Group.
Any text highlighted in yellow in the attached SAFAS enquiry draft indicates changes to the standard that were made during the gap analysis. These changes have been introduced for any of the following possible reasons:
- To Adapt the standard to the PEFC benchmark standard (PEFC 1003:2018). This version came into force after the SAFAS standard was endorsed.
- To incorporate changes that have been made to South African legislation or policy since the first version of the SAFAS standard was approved.
- To make alterations to the standard based on the experienced gained during implementation.
The deadlines for comments is Monday the 23rd of September 2024. Please don’t wait until the last minute to send comments. It helps us immensely if we can get the comments as early as possible.
If you have any questions about the standard and/or the revision process, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Use steve@aes.co.za to send back the completed comments template.
We look forward to receiving your inputs.
SAFAS-4-2024-FM-Standard - Enquiry Draft 2107
