. . . & Reports from Around the Country

Resident's Committee to Protect the Adirondacks has increased it base of family forests. Twenty-two program participants.

Certification has been greatly expanded in Wisconsin through changes to MFL in group cert - BUT - this has had little affect in helping in the marketing of family forest products - it appears a few companies want certified wood (e.g. SENA, Domtar, etc.) and society is paying to make it happen.

American Tree Farm System Group Certification and Green Tag Forestry are the certification services that I have. Most forestland owners in Washington State are not certified.

Healthy Forests Healthy Communities is promoting small and local, making headway with creation of the National Community Forestry Business Alliance, Build Local Alliance, general marketing to help promote this concept NCFBA

The Blue Ridge Forest Cooperative in Virginia only deals with landowners that have SmartWood (SFC) certified forests.

IIn Fall of 2006 Indiana's state forests and Classified Forest (private managed) programs were visited by FSC, SFI, and ATF. Reports from those groups have been delivered and the state is working to complete some minor changes to complete the certification process.

SFI and FSC certification is not having any noticeable impact for private woodland owners in West Virginia. There is a lot of talk of all the merits associated with these programs but very little evidence on the ground that the industry is doing little more than paying lip service to the process to maintain their designation as sustainable. In many cases, especially now when we have very poor timber markets there is strong evidence of timber companies avoiding dealing with property owners that have their own private advocate (forester). Many industrial procurement foresters have related to private consultants that they have been asked to not even look at timber if there is a private forester involved.

Certification is not that popular in this area. However I think landowners see it coming. We’ve been working with several groups to try and figure out how to approach landowners with this concept without turning them away. I feel good about certification being implemented in this area and the timing is right to pursue it.

The co-op markets FSC products mostly NTFPs. At first there was some turmoil over whether we could use the logo but that is behind us now I think

A group in Aitkin MN has built a house of locally produced wood products that have come from FSC certified lands.

We have certified the largest group certificate of non-industrial private Forest owners through the Managed Forest Law and the Tree Farm 3rd party certification program.

As Massachusetts Woodlands Coop sales increase, so expands the awareness of this issue, since we market our products as such.

In Minnesota, we've just received some funding for an awareness marketing campaign about forest certification in Minnesota. This is a very quick rollout but we expect to develop marketing materials targeting woodland owners and the public. The goal is to raise awareness of certification and to encourage action where appropriate and where frameworks exist to efficiently enroll new landowners. Time frame is now through June 2007.

Southern Forests Network will become first community-based FSC group in the South this year!

Increased demand from industry for certified wood.

Tree Farm Certification of Wisconsin MFL. Needs more promotion!

FSC has been moderately helpful, however the 'industry' sponsored schemes (e.g. SFI) have confused the issue and detracted from the usefulness of forest certification.

Why is sustainable forestry certification important? People own the land and pay taxes on it. Why should they be expected to reach other peoples ideas of what should be done on their land? According to the survey, people manage for other reasons (aesthetics, legacy, et cetera). Timber harvest is not a priority. Why is certification needed?

I understand the MFL program in Wisconsin to be certified. That type of expectation, even if it isn't the gold standard of certification, is a step in the right direction.

Certification needs to be affordable to the small landowner.

Northwest Natural Resource Group seems to be thriving, a good sign regionally.

Some incentive dollars have been made available locally and that is helpful.

In the battle to be biggest, certifiers (FSC, Smartwood, Tree Farm, etc.) have pushed to get their acreage numbers up by including corperate and government lands. Certification has offered-but not produced-more income to the family forest owner. At least there is some hope.

In Indiana our state forester has just gone thru the process to certify our state forest as well as the classified forest system. There is follow-up work to do on it the next few years but it is a good start. Some how we need to try to get to woodland owners who are not in the system. It is too early yet to see how this will affect marketing of products.

Certification of private lands seems to hit a wall after a while. People don't stay 'in touch' long enough for certification to become second nature. The paradigm is wearing thin and will likely be replaced with another.

Ontario -- Our public owned forest is FSC certified. The private program is still under development and being implemented slowly.

We appear to be making progress toward persuading local mills to link our FSC wood supply to the local demand for FSC wood. The propaganda of SFI continues to be a problem.

Appears to be good advances in Western Oregon and Washington, but still very limited progress in Eastern Oregon.

FSC certification the organizing principle for Northwest Certified Forestry. We're now at 33 members with roughly 23,000 acres. Dozens of landowners and over 100,000 acres are under recruitment. Contact Ian Hannah if you need more detail.

Community Forestry Resource Center has initiated a project to promote locally grown, FSC certified wood products in the Coulee Region of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. This project has brought together local landowners, builders, architects, foresters, and other wood users to discuss issues with the supply chain for local, certified products and ways to promote the material to consumers and within the multiple sectors of the wood industry.

Sierra Forest Legacy is developing a certification label called 'Sierra Green' to help both industrial and non-industrial enterprises to benefit from sustainable practices.

Find incentives to recruit landowners into forest certification groups. MFL is a WI example. MI passed legislation last year that exempts forest landowners from the school tax portion of their property tax bill if the join a forest certification group.

The pilot mentioned above is also designed to provide a method by which small private ownerships not under MFL can be certified. Nationally, FSC is looking at methods to better facilitate small land owner certification.