The RSPO Secretariat wishes to announce that the ‘Guide on HCSA requirements for the RSPO’ has just been released for a 30-day public consultation from 19 November – 19 December 2021.
This guidance document was developed by the No Deforestation Task Force (NDTF) with the objective of assisting RSPO members who are required to conduct either a standalone HCSA or integrated High Conservation Value (HCV)-HCSA assessment. It highlights the pre-assessment, assessment stage, and post assessment requirements within the HCSA toolkit V2.0 and the High Conservation Value Network (HCVN)’s HCV-HCSA manual, and guides readers on where these requirements can be integrated within RSPO’s existing processes/ procedures/ requirements in order to:
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Ensure the assessment requirements are met prior to submission of the standalone HCSA/ integrated HCV-HCSA assessment report for their respective review processes.
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Streamline and minimise duplication of activities where both RSPO processes and assessments require similar elements [e.g. Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) activities, identification of peat, social and environmental impact assessment (SEIA) etc.] within each respective process.
The draft of the document and commenting template can be downloaded from the links below. Kindly send in your feedback using the provided template to [email protected]. Closing date for comments and feedback regarding the document is 6:00 PM (GMT+8), 19 December 2021.
