Transparent Forest Project: New Opportunities for Higher FSC Certification Quality
The Silver Taiga Foundation’s office hosted a workshop on the results of the field testing of the software solution (WebGIS program system) developed by a group of international experts upon the request from FSC International and targeted on FSC certification quality improvement. These were the actual developers – Charles Eyre, Jim Williams, Peter Wells, Francesco Holesz – who presented it to the workshop participants.
The program system developed as part of the FSC International’s Transparent Forests project includes a mobile application and a WEB interface of the program. Currently, the developers are implementing field testing of the software product in various corners of the world, including Russia.
It took four days – from 18 to 21 April – for the programmers to conduct field tests in Udora district of the Komi Republic, in Puchkom district forestry, at remote Mondi Syktyvkar’s leased areas, jointly with experts from other companies, such as Mondi Syktyvkar, Tekhkarta, FSC Russia, Silver Taiga, and Lesnaya Sertificatsiya.
The participants of the field test got to know the software, with integrated maps based on LandSat and Sentinel images for different periods, in advance. All images are broken down into 9 land classes, such as indigenous forest, agricultural land, understocked forest areas, rivers and wetlands, roads… Provisionally, the base has a number of uploaded layers showing delineation of leased areas and other data of Mondi Syktyvkar.
“We had to see in action whether the 9 classes are enough to ensure efficiency, whether the space images are classified accordingly, that they can guarantee real-time data recording and transmission, that the software is used friendly, particularly in the field, etc.,” Nikolay Shuktomov, Silver Taiga’s forestry coordinator, reports. “For the field test we went to logging plots, noted if key biotopes were available, if there were any soil disturbance, or other details, and immediately saved those posts into the program with the pictures of disturbed conditions…”
Previously, an auditor assessing compliance of forestry management to FSC requirements flew blind. Whereas now, with this software at hand, he or she can see the problem areas in advance, from the office, while getting prepared for auditing an FSC certificate holder, and then check the targets right at the leased area. And the other way round, having spotted the disturbance, it is possible to save the post or the object, upload it on the base layer and even support it with pictures. So, the program will contribute to better auditing, more coherent expenses and higher cost effectiveness of the FSC certification process.
Another important thing to note is that the software solution has been designed for all stakeholders – the FSC certification participants. After its being tested in different regions and the necessary adjustments based on the feedback and suggestions, it will become available for everyone. It means that alongside with certificate holders and auditors other stakeholders, such as public organizations, representatives of local communities and others, will be able to use it. Therefore, it was important to make sure during the field test that the program is comprehensible and applicable for a general user, for a layman.
The workshop participants discussed potential applications and perspectives of the developed software usage, questioned the programmers, and shared their mainly positive feedback and provided requests, which were promised to be taken into account by the developers in the released version.
