Public Consultation on International Chain of Custody Standard

The PEFC Council, the world?s leading forest certification scheme umbrella, invites all interested individuals and organisations to participate in the public consultation on the first draft of an international chain of custody for forest based products being developed by the PEFC Council and which is now available on the PEFC Council website.

"An international chain of custody is an essential mechanism to connect the final product, which the consumer buys, with the forest. It allows consumers to make a positive choice for wood based products from sustainably managed forests. In order prevent unnecessary barriers to the global trade in wood based products, it has become necessary to harmonise the chain of custody requirements at an international level." said Mr Gunneberg, PEFC Council Secretary General.

An international Chain of Custody Standard will allow different forest certification schemes, operating within or outside the PEFC Council's mutual recognition framework, to use the same standard requirements to verify the origin of the forest based raw material and to support their declarations and labels.

The first draft of the international chain of custody standard, and supporting documentation including the basic principles on which the standard was developed, is now available at the PEFC Council official website www.pefc.org. Interested parties are invited to submit their comments to the PEFC Council Secretariat by 15 June 2004.

Ends

For more information contact:

• Mr Ben Gunneberg, PEFC Council - Tel +352 26 25 90 59
• Mr. Jaroslav Tymrak, PEFC Council - Tel +352 26 25 90 59

Editor Notes

PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes)
PEFC is a framework for the mutual recognition of credible national or regional forest certification that have been developed based on internationally recognised requirements for sustainable management. Since its launch in 1999, PEFC has become the largest forest certification organisation covering national schemes from all over the world, delivering hundreds of wood to the processing industry and then onto the market place from over 52 million hectares forests. PEFC has strong grass roots support from many stakeholders including the forestry sector governments, trade associations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.

Chain of Custody of forest based products
The chain of custody traces all the changes of custodianship of forest products, and products thereof, during the harvesting, transportation, processing and distribution chain from the forest to the end-use.