In the FSC system, 'Smallholder' is the term used to describe anyone who owns, manages, or uses forests which are considered 'small' in relation to others in their region, or anyone who harvests timber at a low intensity. Smallholders also include ‘community producers’, even when their Management Units (MU) are large and/or their intensity of harvest is high.

Small-scale, low intensity and community forests around the world face similar issues in preserving their forests and implementing responsible forestry practices, and require tailor made approaches due to certain characteristics such as the size of land, internal governance models, and ownership or customary rights.

FSC solutions for small, low-intensity, and community forests

1. Group certification Forests managers can come together to form a group certification scheme and share their efforts for forest management planning, harvesting, monitoring and marketing their products. Group certification makes it easier, particularly for smallholders, to become FSC certified, as it enables group members to share costs and workload for applying and maintaining an FSC certificate. Forest owners can come together to form a new group or join an existing group in the area. A group administrator helps all members in the group conform with FSC standards and manages the process for certification and annual audits. Learn more here: Forest Management Group Standard 
2. Continuous improvement procedure The continuous improvement procedure empowers small, low-intensity, and community forests to become FSC certificate holders while they work toward full implementation of the FSC standards. Forest managers initiate and implement crucial measures immediately and then commit to a step-by-step plan to conform with all requirements within five years. The procedure is available at FSC Document Centre. 
3. Certification for small and low-intensity managed forests (SLIMF) and community forests FSC has developed definitions for small, low-intensity, and community forests so FSC standards and other FSC requirements can be adapted for local contexts. FSC-STD-01-003 (SLIMF and Community Forest Eligibility Criteria) V2-0 is available at FSC Document Centre. 
4. Asia-Pacific regional standard for smallholders FSC has developed a regional standard that meets the specific needs of small-scale forests in Southeast Asia, where the average forest size is about three hectares. This new, outcome-oriented standard significantly reduces the complexity of certification. A pilot program in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam is now being rolled out. 
5. Market access tools FSC is developing a number of tools to help managers of community and family forests find and access markets for their products. These tools include:  

• Screening tool: Helps forest managers quantitatively assess the chances of success for specific initiatives. The information helps these managers prioritize projects, invest their resources more effectively, and understand when and if to pursue funding. 
• Volume aggregator tool: Empowers community and family forest managers to aggregate volumes and negotiate collectively with the buyer. 
• Economic viability assessor tool: Helps community and family forest managers collectively analyze management scenarios of their resources, identifying how economic viability and other benefits can be generated as they move towards sustainable forest management. 

To discover more about these tools, contact communityfamilyforests@fsc.org. 

FSC-PRO-30-011 Continuous Improvement Procedure  is a new procedure that allows small forest owners and communities to be initially certified based only on a subset of forest management requirements and offers flexible steps towards conformity with the remaining requirements within a defined timeframe.

From policies, to national standards, to controlled wood risk assessments, the most up-to-date versions of documents from our normative framework can be found in the FSC Document Centre.