PEFC Documentation Completely Revised

The PEFC Council approved its completely revised and updated procedures and documentation at the General Assembly today. The revision is a result of a review procedure established at the beginning of 2001 to look at improvements to the PEFC scheme. The changes include for instance a new, more user-friendly structure of the documents, clarification of terms and requirements and new guidelines to revise the national standards and to harmonise the processes for continuous improvement.

"In 2001, the PEFC had been operational for two years and practical experience already existed to allow us to start a comprehensive review procedure", said Mr Ben Gunneberg, Secretary General of the PEFC Council. The one-and-a-half-year evaluation procedure included amongst others an external consultant?s report to review the comments and criticism of the PEFC by various parties. The report formed the basis of a thorough consultation and development process which has now resulted in this substantial review of the PEFC documentation procedures.

"To do the evaluation in a credible manner, our Board took the bold step of commissioning, and publishing the complete report on the Internet. What we now have, as a result, is a streamlined and improved mechanism for the development and assessment of independently developed forest certification schemes", Mr Gunneberg emphasised.

The newly approved documentation has been posted on the PEFC Council website for all interested parties to see (http://www.pefc.org ).

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


Forest certification schemes from the following countries recently joined the PEFC Council, at its General Assembly, as candidate schemes for development and assessment against the PEFC Council requirements:

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