Uk forestry standard (2nd edition) – note of the main amendments

 

Devolution of Forestry in GB to England, Scotland and Wales. The UK Forestry Standard has been adopted in each of the country forestry strategies.

Forestry Authority (FA) now Forestry Commission (FC).

Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland (DANI) now Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD).

Forestry and Arboriculture Safety and Training Council (FASTCo) has been wound up. Its Health and Safety responsibilities are now with the Arboriculture and Forestry Advisory Group (AFAG) of the Health and Safety Commission.

The skills and qualifications area of FASTCo work has been taken over by Lantra, the 'trailblazer' Sector Skills Council for the land based industries.

The United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) now provides the international framework originally started with the International Panel on Forests and later the International Forum on Forests.

The Forest Industry Committee of Great Britain (FICGB) is now the Forest Industries Development Council.

The UK Woodland Assurance Standard (UKWAS) is the UK forest certification standard established in 1999. (This is a new section and is also referenced under monitoring in Figure 3.)

Revised Figure 3 on the conceptual framework of International, National and Local governance and instruments.

Key legislation changes

New Environmental Assessment regulations for GB and for Northern Ireland.

New EU Directive on Forest Reproductive Material and its implementation in UK Forest Reproductive Material regulations (FRM).

EU Water Framework Directive 2000 (added).

Countryside Rights of Way Act (England and Wales) 2000 (added).

Policy and Administrative Changes

Energy Crop Scheme (added).

Approvals under Environmental Assessment Regulations (added).

Deletion of reference to annual compliance surveys of FE by FA. These are no longer required because the FE estate is now independently monitored through FSC certification.

Forest Design Plan development process in FE has replace Forest District Panels.

Policy

Amendments have been made where necessary to reflect devolution of forestry policy and legislation:

Flexibility introduced to the requirement to restock after clear felling, where this would support Government's wider aims for sustainable land use.

Sustainable Forest Management in the UK

This part of the standard, which covers Criteria and Indicators and Monitoring of sustainable forest management in the UK, has been reworked. Concepts have been clarified since the first edition. The Government published a set of UK Indicators of Sustainable Forestry in 2002 and the report from monitoring these indicators will provide the national level information, much of which was separately entered as bullet points in the second column of the original standard. That column has now been re-headed as "The Requirements of Sustainable Forest Management". The only significant change to the other text in that column has been in relation to carbon sequestration. The new text is intended to avoid over-simplifying the complexities of this issue.

Standard Notes

SN1
'Equipment' added to 'precautions' and 'competence' requirements in the first bullet of the first box.

Paragraph on safety responsibilities of growers, purchasers, contractors and sub-contractors (added).

Guidance on established stocking density increased to minimum 2,500 trees per hectare where growing for timber quality.

Protection and Maintenance - first bullet modified to show that fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides should be used only when other options are not available or economic to use.

Planning harvesting operations. The need to obtain EA or SEPA permission for burning lop and top (added).

Deletion of reference to guideline on forest roads (not published).

SN2
A reference to publication of Ecological Site Classification (added).

SN5
Choice of native planting stock updated in line with new published guidance on using local planting stock and with the new FRM regulation.

Appendix 3

Affect of CROW Act on conservation (added).

Register of Landscapes of Special Interest in Wales (added).

Local Forestry Frameworks added to list of indicative information.

Appendices

Minor updates in line with other changes and recent publications.

Other changes

Other very minor changes have been made to improve the text. These are not substantive.