Testing of manual for verification of legal origin in Russia

During the period October-December 2006, NEPCon assisted in testing and fine-tuning a manual for the verification of legal wood in Russia. The manual targets buyers who wish to verify the legality of the wood they purchase from Russian suppliers.

The objective of the test was to evaluate the usefulness of the draft manual as guidance for assessing the systems and methods used by Russian processing companies in order to verify the legal origin of timber. NEPCon’s certification experts Nikolai Tochilov and Alexey Klochikhin were responsible for testing the manual and spent nearly 1,5 months on this task.

The evaluation was carried out within the framework of the Russian-Danish project “Verifying the Legal Origin of Russian Timber”. The project is implemented by WWF in collaboration with the Federal Forest Agency and four pilot forest companies located in the Vologda, Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk regions. 

The testing of the manual was conducted by applying the manual as well as the FSC standard STD-40-005 to the four pilot operations. A special checklist was developed by the consultants and filled in during the evaluation. On-site inspections included interviews with key staff, review of documentation, inspection of the companies’ production facilities and timber suppliers.

Based on the test, NEPCon’s experts provided recommendations for final adjustments. They also proposed to develop a simplified checklist for Danish customers based on the final manual.