AS NZS 4708:2021 pdf free download – Sustainable forest management -requirements

AS NZS 4708:2021 pdf free download – Sustainable forest management -requirements.
AS NZS 4708 specifies cultural, economic, environmental and social criteria and system performance requirements for the production of forest products and forest services that support continual improvement towards sustainable Forest management.
This Standard can be applied to any defined forest area irrespective of scale or type of ownership, or whether native forest or plantation. A forest manager seeking independent, third- party certification, shall demonstrate conformance with the requirements of each criterion.
1.2 Application
The requirements are applicable only where relevant to the actual operations of the forest manager, scope and to their defined forest area. The scale and intensity of activity within the defined forest area, organisation and Impacts on the Identified aspects of forest management can be considered In the application of the requirements. The Standard promotes a precautionary approach and incorporates its application to sustainable forest management.
The Standard applies to the activities of the forest manager relevant to the scope of certification. It encompasses the management of forests within the defined forest area and includes performance standards and requirements in relation to the harvest and sale of certified forest products. It provides the first link in the thain of custody supply chain.
The requirements within this Standard can be separated Into five main sections;
• The Plan-Do-Check-Act model (Sections 1-10)
• Sustainability Criteria (Section 11)
• Requirements for group certification schemes (Appendix B)
• Normative appendices (Appendices B and D)
• Informative appendices (Appendices A and C)
1.2.1 The Plan-Do-Check-Act model
Sections 4 to 10 of the Standard outline the underpinning system requirements that forest managers are required to implement to manage and improve performance. The system requirements should be applied to the management of sustainability criteria outlined in Section
11.
The basis for the approach underlying a sustainable forest management system outlined in this Standard is founded on the concept of adaptive management and the Plan-Do-Check-Act model (Pl)CA). The PI)CA model provides an iterative process used by organisations to achieve continual improvement. It can be applied to a forest management system and to each of its individual elements, including the sustainability criteria outlined in Section ii. It can be briefly described as follows:
a) Plan: establish objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the organisation’s sustainable Forest management policy,
b) Do: implement the processes as planned.
c) Check: monitor and measure processes against the sustainable forest management policy, including its commitments, sustainahility oblectives and operating criteria, and report the results.
d) Act: take actions to continually improve.
a term covering any of the following hiodiversity values:
1. known or likely occurrences of threatened species and their known and potential habitat;
2. threatened communities (including lorest. non-forest and non-terrestrial communities);
3. old-growth forest and/or other forest types which are rare or depleted (generally less than 10% of extant distribution);
4, under-represented vegetation communities:
in Australia,
(A) vegetation communities (Including forest, non-forest and non-terrestrial) that are currently reserved at less than 15% of their pry-European distribution or equivalent benchmark time;
(B) old-growth vegetation communities (including forest, non-forest and non- terrestrial communities) that are currently reserved at less than 60% of the extant area;
in New Zealand.
(C) native vegetation associated with land environments (defIned by Land Environments of New Zealand at Level IV) that have 20% or less remaining native cover;
5. sensitive ecosystems such as wetlands and karst ecosystems;
6. areas with regionally or nationally significant concentrations of native species that are at risk from current, planned or potential management activities;
7. globally, regionally and nationally significant large intact forest landscapes with natural distribution and abundance of naturally occurring species;
8. disjunct or outlier populations, refugia and centres of endemism;
9. endangered or protected genetic In situ resources and/or other natural areas important for conservatkin of important genes;
10. areas with significant seasonal concentrations of species’ (e.g. areas important to the lifecycle or migration paths of migratory and communal breeding species, including native fish spawning sites); or
11. remnants in extensively cleared landscapes and mature forest In degraded landscapes.