Certified Wood

Forest Certification is a market based conservation strategy that encourages land owners to practice socially and environmentally sound forestry. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international non-profit that sets international standards for responsible forestry and accredits forest product certifiers worldwide and creates market incentives for producers to responsibly manage forests and harvest timber. Under the "Smartwood" trade name the FSC has certified over 700 operations and over 4 million hectares worldwide, and demand for certified lumber from these operations is increasing rapidly. The industry-run Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) falls seriously short of the more rigorous standards found in the independent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) system.

About 800 million hectares of global forest, an area 22 times the size of Germany, are managed using conventional, mostly destructive, logging practices, according to the WWF. The 13 largest companies in the world trade more than one-quarter of all industrial roundwood, the group says. "We can only stop deforestation with the help of strategic alliances, strong partners and new partner-ships in industry, economics and politics!" said Heiko Liedeker, WWF's forestry expert.

What are the criteria for certified wood?
Certified wood must come from forests which have:

• a secure long-term future (i.e., it will not be cleared in the foreseeable future);
• good environmental functions, including watershed stability and biological conservation;
• a sustained yield forestry production;
• a positive impact on local communities; and,
• a system for long-term forest management planning, management and monitoring (including a written forest management plan).

For more information check out http://www.smartwood.org/

Authors Note: Certified Wood products are not easily found but can be found by going to the above website and going to "search for product" at http://www.brandsystems.net/smartwood/