Forest certification

Forest certification is a mechanism to ensure that our forests are managed sustainably to maintain and enhance the long-term health of forest ecosystems. Consumers are demanding that forests are managed in a way that meets our current needs without compromising future forest health and productivity. Third party certification systems in Canada ensure that our forest management practices maintain all of the values we look for from our forests, such as wood supply, wildlife habitat and now, more than ever before, carbon sequestration and mitigation.

British Columbia has some of the toughest sustainability laws in the world. Many forest companies have embraced independent sustainable forest certification as a way to demonstrate superior performance. It involves the third-party assessment of a company's practices against a standard that goes beyond regulatory requirements and takes into consideration environmental, economic and social values.

Except for all of Canada, BC has more certified forests than any other jurisdiction in the world. As of January 2008, it had 52 million hectares (more than 128 million acres) of land certified to one of three main certification programs: the Canadian Standards Association's Sustainable Forest Management Standard (CSA), the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

In addition to ensuring that harvested areas are reforested, that laws are obeyed and there's no unauthorized or illegal logging, these programs all include elements of sustainability such as the conservation of biological diversity, maintenance of wildlife habitat, soils and water resources, and the sustainability of timber harvesting. They require annual surveillance audits as well as public disclosure of audits through audit reports, and they require forest companies to engage with aboriginal people affected by their operations. They also address biodiversity in the context of special sites such as old growth forests, wildlife habitat and/or ecosystem diversity across the landscape.