New Brochures on Forest Certification Launched

Three new brochures on forest certification have been launched by the PEFC Council and are now available on the web page http://www.pefc.org . "The brochures outline sustainable forest management, its certification and responsible procurement of wood-based materials", said Mr. Hannu Valtanen, Vice President of the PEFC Council.

Three new brochures on forest certification have been launched by the PEFC Council and are now available on the web page http://www.pefc.org . "The brochures outline sustainable forest management, its certification and responsible procurement of wood-based materials", said Mr. Hannu Valtanen, Vice President of the PEFC Council.

Mr. Valtanen added that "interest in PEFC?s work has increased significantly since its inception three years ago, and in particular by those involved in business to business specifying and procurement of wood-based products who have been eagerly awaiting this material."

The brochures explain why and how the forest industry, ranging from small to medium sized enterprises all the way through to multinational companies, should and can contribute to promoting sustainable forest management by getting their wood flows certified. The companies can also use the brochures to keep their customers informed and encourage them to have their wood flows certified.

"By using a certified wood flow accounting system, wood from sustainably managed and certified forests can be tracked to the final products and then be labeled. This in turn allows end consumers to make a positive choice for sustainable forest management", said Mr. Valtanen.

The brochures will also be available in French and German in the very near future and several other language versions are envisaged thereafter.

Editor Notes

Forest certification is a process to provide an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that the wood used in the products comes from sustainably managed forest. Sustainably managed forest are those whose management implements performance standards based on internationally agreed environmental, social and economical requirements.

PEFC is a framework for the mutual recognition of credible national or regional forest certification schemes which have been developed to meet internationally recognised requirements for sustainable forest management. Since its launch in 1999, PEFC has become the largest forest certification umbrella organisation covering national schemes from all over the world, delivering hundreds of millions of tonnes of wood to the processing industry and then onto the market place from tens of millions of hectares of certified forests. PEFC has strong grass roots support from many stakeholders including the forestry sector, governments, trade associations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.

To date, the PEFC Council has endorsed 13 schemes (out of the 26 member schemes) which account for over 44 million hectares of certified sustainably managed forests.

Schemes endorsed by PEFCC - Hectares certified

• Austrian Forest Certification Scheme - 3.924 000
• Belgian Forest Certification Scheme
• Czech Forest Certification Scheme
• Danish Forest Certification Scheme
• Finnish Forest Certification Scheme - 21.910 000
• French Forest Certification Scheme - 583 908
• German Forest Certification Scheme - 6.047 181
• Latvian Forest Certification Scheme - 17 019
• Norwegian LFS Certification Scheme - 9.352 000
• Spanish Forest Certification Scheme - 86 679
• Swedish Forest Certification Scheme - 2.203 531
• Swiss Q Label Holz Scheme - 64 572
• UK Certification Scheme for SFM

• Australia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Estonia
• Lithuania (effective as of registration of the joining organisation as a legal entity)
• Luxembourg
• Malaysia
• Slovak Republic