PEFC welcomes SOYDER as national member for Turkey

7 December 2020 PEFC system news

Our 25^th General Assembly was a day of important decisions, lively discussions and welcoming new members into the family. Among them is the Association for Sustainable Forest Management, Forest Products and Services Certification (SOYDER), that joined the alliance as the national member for Turkey.

“We are delighted to welcome SOYDER to the PEFC family,” said Ben Gunneberg, PEFC International CEO, after our 25^th General Assembly.

“It is wonderful to see that the PEFC alliance keeps growing, even in this exceptional year, and we are looking forward to working together with SOYDER towards PEFC-certified forests in Turkey.”

“We are happy and honoured to join the PEFC family,” said Göksel Korkmaz, Vice President of SOYDER.

“Being a PEFC member means joining the world’s leading forest certification system.”

“Particularly these days the trending topics in many nations are a green deal, green economy and tackling the climate crisis. Countries try to create new strategies to deal with these problems,” he continued.

“Sustainable Forest Management under the PEFC umbrella will give our system more credibility and a better reputation, and will open new doors for our certified products."

The work on a national system begins

Following the acceptance in the PEFC alliance, the next step will be a PEFC-endorsed national sustainable forest management system, and the first PEFC-certified hectares in the country.

“We will immediately start revising our current sustainable forest management system to make it compliant with the PEFC criteria,” said Göksel Korkmaz.

“We have a strong team, so we hope to complete our system in a short period of time, and then be fully efficient in our forest management and chain of custody certification under the name of PEFC.”

“I want to thank all of you, and we are looking forward to being part of PEFC and help to strengthen the network.”