• Australian Forestry Standard - This Standard is being developed to provide a basis for voluntary, independent third-party certification against auditable forest management performance criteria that support sustainable management of forests for wood production. It is intended that the Standard would be suitable for use in both native and planted forests regardless of tenure or scale of ownership.

• Plantation Timber Certification -PTC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Plantation Timber Association of Australia, and conducts third-party audited product certification activities for the Plantation Timber Association of Australia. The PTC offers product certification services to any softwood producer in the Australasian region

Australian Publications

• The Development of an Australian Forestry Standard: An Environmental NGO Perspective - Preliminary Submission to The Ministerial Council Forestry, Fisheries and Aquaculture (on line). Prepared by Tim Cadman MA on behalf of: Conservation Council of Western Australia Friends of the Earth Native Forest Network Rainforest Information Centre West Australian Forest Alliance To date, a lack of meaningful consultation and participation of ENGOs and other non-industry stakeholders in the preliminary development of an Australian Standard is not encouraging. There are also significant environmental failings in an approach that is based solely on Montreal, Regional Forest Agreements and ISO (outlined below) which further undermines stakeholder expectations that this Standard will be anything more than an endorsement of the current industrial status quo, with all its attendant environmental problems.

• Australian Forestry Standard – an overview - The Australian Forestry Standard seeks to distil from community values and the science of forest management those economic, social, environmental and indigenous criteria that are considered to be most important for ensuring that a forest is well-managed. It is intended to give rise to a formal and reliable audit protocol that can be used by an accredited and independent third party auditor and it embodies forest management performance criteria which support continuous improvement toward sustainable wood production in Australia.

• Forest Certification Watch - one stop source for global certification developments

• FSC - home page

• FSC – Smartwood Certification in UK

• Smartwood - Practical Conservation Through Certified Forestry

• SmartWood Regional Guidelines for Assessing Forest Management in New Zealand (Third Draft, March 2000)

• Pan-European Forest Certification

• The UK Woodland Stewardship Company

• The Certified Forest Products Council

• Certified Wood Products Market of United States (loads of articles and research) - is an independent, 501©(3), not-for-profit, voluntary business initiative established in 1997. It is committed to promoting responsible forest products buying practices throughout North America in an effort to improve forest management practices worldwide

• Sustainable Forestry and Certification Watch

• World Bank / WWF Forest Alliance

• ISO Homepage - ISO 14001

• Forest World - Certification and Sustainability

• Certified Wood Products Market of United States - The purpose of this site is to act primarily as a clearinghouse for information on the certified forest products marketplace and certification, with a secondary emphasis on issues surrounding sustainable forest management and sustainability in general. This web site is designed to assist anyone looking for information relating to the above topics by acting as a site where organizations, professionals, businesses, researchers, students, and the community may find and post information (working papers, editorials, studies) and links. This web site is not sponsored by any organization and is designed to be as objective as possible

• The Indonesian Eco-Labelling Institute - In 1998 LEI completed its development of a national certification system for natural production forest. The system includes a national set of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management, which has a near-100% compatibility with those of ITTO and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In developing its certification system, LEI adopted three key principles: a multi-stakeholder approach, independent third-party assessment, and voluntary certification.

International Publications

• The comparison of the FSC Forest certification and iso Environmental management Schemes and their impact on a Small retail business. - Concern regarding the impact of economic activity on the environment has increased over the last decade. This in turn has led to the development of environmental certification schemes. Two of these - the Forest Stewardship Council and ISO Environmental Management System schemes - which relate to forest management practices are compared. The effects of these two systems are then evaluated by considering the real life situation of a small company active in the retail timber and ironmongery sector of the DIY market.

• Certified Wood Products: The Potential For Price Premiums - Keith Forsyth 1998. Whilst many people involved in the certification debate would argue that the adoption of certification standards is a “good thing”, there is a lack of robust data regarding the financial implications of that adoption. This paper explores what are arguably the two most important financial issues for forest owners and manufacturers of certified products: the costs of certification and the potential for charging price premiums to cover these costs. The factors that determine the ability of companies to charge price premiums are also discussed.

• Potential Markets for Certified Forest Products in Europe - by Ewald Rametsteiner • Peter Schwarzbauer Heikki Juslin • Jari Kärnä • Roger Cooper John Samuel • Michael Becker • Tobias Kühn European Forest Institute Discussion Paper 2 The European market is undoubtedly one of the big global markets for forest products. Its role in both total consumption and in trade underline its size and importance: in Europe the apparent consumption of sawnwood and wood-based panels amounted to 131.8 mill. m³, and the consumption of paper and paperboard to 73.1 mill. tons in 1995 (UN/ECE-FAO 1996).

• ITTO’s Role in Building the Foundations for Assessing and Certifying Sustainable Tropical Forest Management - Steven Johnson International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) Yokohama, Japan ITTO has been an active participant in the debates surrounding timber and forest management certification since the genesis of the concept in the late 1980’s. The focus of forest management certification has shifted from primarily tropical to mainly temperate and boreal forests as it has been put into practice over the past decade. Nonetheless, ITTO has retained a keen interest in certification due to its potential for improving market access for tropical timbers and - to a lesser extent - for enhancing the prospects for better management of tropical forests.

International Articles

• European Forests en route to be Certified - “The Pan European Forest Certification Scheme (PEFC), a framework for the mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes, is well on the way to being able to accept applications from national certification schemes for assessment on compatibility with the Pan European Criteria.” This was the key message given by Mr. Henri Plauche Gillon, Chairman of the Pan European Forest Certification Council (PEFCC) to delegates at its second General Assembly in Prague, Czech Republic

• Timber Industry Warns of 'Eco-Dictatorship' - Marc Morano. CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer November 27, 2001.Belem, Brazil (CNSNews.com). Timber industry representatives say international environmental groups are trying to establish a worldwide "eco-dictatorship," by creating environmental myths and controlling the forestry industry. The FSC was started by the environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and seeks to become the international standard in forest

• Contribution by Rupert Oliver - The essential difference lies in the rules established for decision making. In the FSC, environmental and social ENGOs together are allowed two thirds of the vote, and industry one third. In the PEFC, the process has been led by private forest owners (not by industry)

• Contribution by Scott Dunlop - Now proponents of certification are stating that “within five years woodlot owners will have no choice but to pay for certification if they want to sell products from their lands” (a quote from a consultant who was proposing SFC in Ontario at a Model Forest meeting I recently attended). Excuse my bluntness, but considering the costs of woodlot ownership, plus the added expenses certification when there is no gaurantee of premiums for forest products, it is a far better investment for me as woodlot owner to clearcut my forest, fence it, put in sheep or cattle and receive property and income tax incentives for being a farmer.

• Contribution made by Allen Hopwood - - I too am dismayed at the approach to certification being taken by major industrial corporations and the “major industrial” consultants (eg., KPMG) handling their certifications. This is obviously the wrong way to go. It does not have to be this way and it definitely should not be this way.

• Training the assessors - An ITTO project has assisted the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute to prepare the ground for forest certification - by Dradjad H. Wibowo, Daru Asycarya and, Aditya Bayunanda. ESTABLISHED in 1998 after a four-year development period as a national working group on ecolabelling, the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute (Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia—LEI) is a national accreditation body for forest certification and timber ecolabelling in Indonesia. Its aim is to promote sustainable natural resource management in Indonesia through credible certification and ecolabelling.

• Talks Fail to Defuse Forest Certification War - ROME, Italy, February 21, 2001 (ENS) - An ongoing battle for supremacy between the two largest sustainable forestry certification plans continued this week at a seminar organized in Rome by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plus German aid agency GTZ and the International Tropical Timber Organization.

• Forest Certification Battle Axes Clash - ANTWERP, Belgium, April 19, 2000 (ENS) – European environmental groups have lashed out at the fledgling Pan-European Forest Certification (PEFC) agency backed by the timber industry, accusing it of “bias,” a “closed door approach,” and preventing wider stakeholder participation.

 

The information contained on this page does not necessarily reflect the views of PFNQ