Forest certification
Also called FSC, SFI, PEFC
Third-party verification that a forest is managed to a published standard — a claim about management practice, not about legality and not about the wood itself.
The Forest Products Association of Canada publishes 154 million hectares of certified forest land in Canada across FSC, PEFC and SFI, putting Canada at 38% of the world’s certified forest while only 10% of the world’s forests are certified at all.
Ontario publishes its own position as unit counts rather than hectares. As of December 2020, 26.1 million hectares were certified — 29 of 39 management units, 77% of the public lands and waters within management units, comprising 13 FSC units, 9 SFI, 6 dual, 1 CSA and 10 uncertified.
Certification is a separate instrument from legality. Canada’s Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act and the United States Lacey Act both prohibit trade in illegally sourced timber, and Natural Resources Canada states that the risk of illegal logging is negligible in all regions of Canada. A certification mark answers a management question; the statutes answer a legality one.
Related
Terms this one depends on
- Selection systemA silvicultural system of periodic partial harvests that keeps mature forest cover in place permanently, rather than removing and replacing a stand.
- Tolerant hardwoodA hardwood species that regenerates and grows under a closed forest canopy, and can therefore be harvested without opening the stand.
Provenance
Where this definition comes from
Framework pillars this term is material to
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