Forest Certification of Today

Home	Today SmartWood is the world’s leading FSC forest certifier with more than 68 million hectare within 66 countries including more than 1,300 certified operations. It is important to make the distinction that forest certification does not advocate no harvesting of trees from forests, but promotes responsible management of forests around the world. Certification is quality assurance that you have met rigorous standards and are a good land manager; it’s like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. –Connie Best, The Pacific Forest Trust There are several reasons why a forest owner or a company that sell forest products should get certified. For starters it confirms that the way business is run meets high environmental and social standards. It is also a third-party verification, which means that there is an accreditation of what your business is doing. As a business owner it will become a helpful marketing tool and give you access to new markets and will legitimize your management strategy with the whole world. The next step is to get certified, here is the outline that SmartWood provides for the Certification Process: Forest Management and Non-Timber Forest Products Certification The candidate operation fills out an application to be certified; A multi-disciplinary team (usually a forester, an ecologist and a community relations specialist) conducts field work to assess the candidate operation’s performance, using FSC-approved SmartWood standards as the “measuring stick” Our team designs and implements a stakeholder consultation process that seeks outside input on the candidate operation’s performance, including input from local communities, environmental groups, government, and scientific researchers; After consultation and field work, the SmartWood team produces an audit report; The audit report is reviewed both by the candidate company and independent peer reviewers (who are selected by SmartWood); Based on the field work, stakeholder consultation and peer review inputs, a certification decision is made. The Principles and Criteria for Certification outline what auditors are looking for when deciding to accredit a business with the certified label. This map shows where there are certified sites endorsed by FSC around the world (the purple dots). Map courtesy of FSC. The following graphs give an idea of the types of forest certified and which countries are participating most in this process. Graphs courtesy of FSC. Today Minnesota is one of the leading states in America for area of certified forests with 4.8 million acres. Just last December the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN-DNR) was awarded certification of sustainable management through both the FSC and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). In order to maintain certification the auditing process is repeated over every four years. Since the management process is constantly changing it is difficult to a have a flawless plan. After the initial audit, a list of high priority changes is created and these changes have to be made within two years of the initial audit. The following is a list of changes that need to be made in the Minnesota certified forests in order to maintain certification. List from Hoff, Mary. Stamped and Certified. Minnesota Conservation Volunteer. MN-DNR. May-June 2006. p. 26.
History of Forest Certification
Forest Certification of Today
Hopes and Goals
Certified Products
References