Chhattisgarh Forest Department / NWFP Certification

Certification of products should be done only if the produces meet the standards of sustainable techniques at the time of harvesting the produce from the forests, so that quality of forest management practices determine the quality of the produce thus derived from forests. For this, people should be made aware of the following principles of sustainable harvesting.

There is also a need to check the process of harvesting as well as building capacity of the forest produce collectors and farmers in issues like:

When to harvest -

Stage of maturity/ripening of produce.
Period of harvesting (from when to when? e.g Ripened Aonla (Emblica officinalis) fruits are harvested in the month of November-February).
If the produce is to be harvested at the flowering stage, what should be the right time for harvesting?
If leaves are to be harvested, what stage is preferred by the industry or buyer and at what stage the plant/tree will yield its maximum.

How to harvest –

What should be the harvesting technique for a particular produce.
What harvesting techniques are available for ensuring non-destructive harvesting of NWFP including medicinal plants?
What are the means through which the negative impact of harvesting methods can be minimized?
What plant parts can be used for other purposes as well? (e.g: what alternative uses can be improvised from a given plant species. Can the leaves, barks, etc. be also used if a particular harvesting technique requires uprooting the whole plant for taking out the roots of the plants?)

How much to harvest -

Quantity to be harvested from a tree/plant.
Quantity to be left behind on the tree/plant so that the regeneration from the new seeds is not hampered.
What should be the sustainable level of harvesting?
How much should be left behind as seed material?

Thus, certification of the process and product will lead to improve the livelihoods and well being of disadvantaged people in rural areas and to improve the scope of marketing of NWFP from forest as well as agricultural lands. Certification will specifically help those who want to save money through reducing waste handling costs, raw material costs and production costs and also those who want to operate in environmentally sound and responsible manner.

There is an increasing use of the term certification/verification, with the implication that these are two linked, but not synonymous, actions. Certification is a means of verifying a standard, but there are also other means of verifying without formal certification. For example there is a view that national-level criteria and indicator processes could be used to verify standards at a national level, rather than taking the more costly and time-consuming route of certifying specific forests; another is a greater reliance on country laws and regulations. Views on this, and other options, differ however.