MC&I(Forest Plantations) Adopted as the Standard for Certification of Forest Plantations in Malaysia

The Eleventh Meeting of the multi-stakeholder National Steering Committee (NSC) held on 25 November 2008 has adopted the Malaysian Criteria and Indicators for Forest Management Certification (Forest Plantations) or in short the MC&I(Forest Plantations) as the standard for certification of forest plantations in Malaysia.
The adoption of the MC&I(Forest Plantations) marks another milestone in the work of the NSC which, in 2004 has also adopted the Malaysian Criteria and Indicators for Forest Management Certification or in short the MC&I(2002), as the standard for certification of natural forests in Malaysia.
The need to develop a standard for certification of forest plantations was mooted by the NSC at its Fourth Meeting held on 25-26 January 2002, taking cognisance of the importance of forest plantations as source of raw materials for the wood-based industry in Malaysia.

Fourth Meeting of the National Steering Committee

On the recommendation of the NSC, a one-day National Workshop on Standard for Certification of Plantation Forests was held in Kuala Lumpur 31 October 2002 to ascertain the level of interest and urgency from the stakeholder groups to develop such a standard, as well as to discuss the way forward. The Workshop generated substantial discussion on the approach to be adopted in formulating the plantation standard and in charting the way forward.

National Workshop on Standard for Certification of Plantation Forests

However, as the initial focus of the NSC was on the development of a standard for the certification of natural forests in Malaysia, work on the development of the plantation standard was expedited only in 2006 with the formation of the twelve-member Technical Working Group (TWG) for the Development of the MC&I(Forest Plantations), with balanced representation by stakeholder groups and regions, i.e. Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia.

Second Meeting of TWG

The development of the MC&I(Forest Plantations) has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny in the form of deliberations through five TWG meetings, two meetings of the 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.

Regional Consultation in Peninsular Malaysia

Regional Consultation in Sabah

Regional Consultation in Sarawak

Conduct of field test in Sabah

Conduct of field test in Sarawak

Conduct of field test in Peninsular Malaysia

Meeting of the Eleventh National Steering Committee

MTCC, which served as the NSC Secretariat, would like to place on record its sincere thanks and appreciation to all Members and Alternate Members of the NSC for their contribution in developing and finalizing the MC&I(Forest Plantations) as the standard for the certification of forest plantations in Malaysia, and to all Members of the TWG for their hard work and commitment in drafting the standard.

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