The Final Draft of the First National FSC Standard for Belarus had been approved by the Standards Development Group members and sent to the Policy and Standards Unit (PSU) of FSC International for final comments.

Because of the association of the forest sector in Russia and Belarus with armed conflict, no FSC-certified material or controlled wood from these countries will be permitted to be traded.

On 19 March 2021 the FSC International Board of Directors decided to postpone the effective date of FSC-STD-40-004 V3-1 Chain of Custody Certification until 1 September 2021. 

Simultaneously, the end of the transition period has been extended from 12 months to 15 months after the effective date. This means the transition period for version 3-1 of the standard spans from 1 September 2021 to 31 December 2022.