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FORESTRY CERTIFICATIONI hear a lot of discussion about forest certification. What is it and how will it help the forest industry? Forest certification is the new reality in our industry. Forest certification is a market-based instrument aimed at promoting sustainable forest management. It involves independent verification of forest management practices against established standards. Successful certification allows companies to claim that their products come from sustainably managed forests. It also provides companies with the option of using a label on their forests products, depending on the system. The interest in certified forest products is a recent but growing marketplace reality, especially in Europe and the United States, two of Canada's key markets for forest products. In Canada, roughly 145 million hectares has been certified under one or more of the four main certifications currently in use in Canada. Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Organization for International Standardization (ISO), and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). The current multiplicity of certification programs in the global marketplace is a reflection of the early stages of certification as a market based tool to promote sustainable forest management. While experts predict that in the future some certifications systems may prove to be more efficient than others from either a global or local perspective, there is no current reason to believe that one approach is best.
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