MC&I(Forest Plantations) adopted as the Standard for Certification of Forest Plantations under the MTCS

The Thirty Ninth Meeting of the MTCC Board of Trustees held on 17 February 2009 has adopted the MC&I(Forest Plantations) as the standard for the certification of forest plantations under the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS). The adoption of the MC&I(Forest Plantations) marks another milestone in the operation of the MTCS which has been focusing on the certification of natural forests since October 2001.

The MC&I(Forest Plantations) has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny in the form of deliberations through five Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings, two meetings of the National Steering Committee (NSC), three regional consultations, one national public consultation, as well as three field tests, over the period from February 2006 to November 2008. The milestones in the development of the MC&I(Forest Plantations) are as shown in Table 1.

Some salient points of the MC&I(Forest Plantations) are as follows:

  • it is a standard adopted for the certification of industrial tree plantations (including rubber plantation); and hence would not be applicable for certification of non-wood plantations such as oil palm plantations;
  • among others, the standard emphasizes the need to balance the economic, environmental and social aspect in the establishment and management of forest plantations; and
  • forest plantations submitted for assessment under this standard after 1 January 2010 must not be established on high conservation value forest areas (please refer to Indicator 6.10.1).

In this connection, all forest plantation managers who currently manage and are in the process of establishing new forest plantations with the view of going for forest management certification under the MTCS are therefore advised to familiarize themselves with the requirements of the MC&I(Forest Plantations).
Should you need any further clarification with regard to the standard, please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Yong Teng Koon at 03-92005008 or e-mail at [email protected]
Please click here to download the soft copy of the MC&I(Forest Plantations).

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