19-23 July 2021, Soil Association evaluated the complaint against Hrvatske šume

Soil Association Certification Ltd. (SA) as an independent certification body accredited to conduct FSC forest management audits worldwide, performs annual audits of Hrvatske šume (HŠ) to check their compliance with FSC standards. Each annual audit is preceded by extensive consultations with stakeholders, and the process continues with the audit itself. The outcome of each audit is a report that lists strong and/or weak points and compliance and/or non-compliance with the standard.

In 2021, a complaint was received under the title Report on deforestation in the Republic of Croatia by a stakeholder (document published in October 2020). A large audit team (a total of 6 auditors and experts) participated in the annual supervisory audit of HŠ, including the evaluation of complaints from the mentioned document, which is why the audit was significantly extended (5 days).

The assessment included a review of relevant documentation and management planning records, field visits, interviews with forest managers and workers, and filling out forest management checklists. The number of places to visit is determined in part on the usual annual sampling and on the basis of Report received from a stakeholder.

Before the audit, on May 27 2020, 99 stakeholders were contacted, and responses were received from 2 stakeholders. During the audit, the audit team inspected 4 Forest Administrations (Zagreb, Sisak, Karlovac and Bjelovar), checked the documentation and visited the forests in the field. The forests were assessed according to the new interim forest management standard (INS) for Croatia: FSC-STD-HRV-01-2020 EN (date of entry into force of the standard: April 1 2021).

Verification of the evidence from the Report on Deforestation in the Republic of Croatia has been carried out, and a summary of the findings together with the evidence collected during the visit is given in the Certification Body's Report, which is available below. During the audit, no evidence was found to support the complaints made by the stakeholders.

The full report on the forest management audit of HŠ for 2021 and previous years is available at the FSC Public Search.

We remind you that the FSC has developed a Dispute Resolution System (DRS), described in procedure FSC-PRO-01-008 EN. The FSC DRS provides a framework for resolving disputes that stakeholders may have with the FSC Steering Committee, FSC Network Partners, ASI, FSC Accredited Certification Bodies or FSC Certificate Holders. DRS mandates that disputes should always be resolved at the lowest possible level (requirement 1.2), and complaints (related to the scope of certification) should first be submitted to the FSC certificate holder. If the complainant is not satisfied with the answer of the certificate holder, they can raise the complaint by one level and submit it to the independent certification body of the certificate holder (case described above - HŠ). A schematic representation of dispute resolution within the FSC system is shown below.