News
| Forest Certification: A 2010 Status Report | 2010-03-30 |
From Dovetail Partners Inc. - Kathryn Fernholz, Lead Author In September 2004, Dovetail Partners released the report “A Land Manager’s Guide to FSC & SFI: To Certify or Not To Certify, Is That a Question?” Over the past six years, this report has been directly downloaded thousands of times from the Dovetail website as well as being uploaded and made available through other organizations. At the time the report was released there was notable debate and confusion about the emerging world of forest certification. Since that time, forest certification has grown, in terms of the amount of certified land and companies participating in chain-of-custody and these trends have continued in recent years, despite economic challenges in the economy and within the homebuilding and forest sector specifically. However, certified wood has yet to achieve a critical mass in the marketplace. In fact, by some measures certification’s expansion in recent years has been driven primarily by the paper industry and the significant impacts thereby limited to this sector of the marketplace. Certification still needs to establish itself more broadly in the solid wood products marketplace. In the final analysis, it appears that the harmonization of chain-of-custody requirements for multiple certification systems could go a long way toward helping the overall market grow. This 2010 report reviews the current status of forest certification programs, summarizes changes that have occurred over the past six years and speculates on what the future may bring in terms of opportunities and challenges. This report examines the North American context with some limited global references and with particular attention paid to programs of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Information is also provided regarding the American Tree Farm System (ATFS) of the American Forest Foundation (AFF), the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC). To view the full report, click here.
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Eastern White Pine VS. Radiata Pine. Learn about these two species in a side by side comparison. Who will be victorious?
Founded in 1933, the Northeastern Lumber Manufacturer's Association (NELMA) is one of seven lumber rules writing agencies in the U.S. accredited by the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC) to write grade rules that are certified as conforming to the American Softwood Lumber Standard PS20. NELMA is the official author and administrator of the grading rules for Eastern White Pine, in particular.
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