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Greg Mumm is the Executive Director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition and a long-time TLCA member. Send him e-mail at brgreg@sharetrails.org.

March/April 2007

THE OPEN GATE

by Greg Mumm

So here is something from on the horizon—third party Forest Certification.

Third party Forest Certification is something that really got started on an international level in the early nineties and has since been gaining ground. Sometimes called the “green sticker” program, it is basically a private sector system of evaluating how forests are managed for sustainability. Forests identified that meet the criteria of the third party accreditation get to claim the “sticker” and those that don’t—don’t.

There is a growing demand from industry, business and end users for products that originate from a certified forest. Even some national office supply chains and wood products suppliers won’t sell products that didn’t originate in a certified forest. Naturally, this growing demand puts forest managers in a situation where they are in earnest to have their forest certified so they can sell their products. It is like a third party audit of a corporation.

In the US, there are basically four parties that certify, with two of them, SFI (the Sustainable Forestry Initiative®) and FSC-US (the Forest Stewardship Council), being the major players with international ties. Near as I can tell from my research, SFI is an industry based certification body and FSC-US stems from environmental organizations.

It doesn’t sound like such a bad idea on the surface, does it? In fact, it is actually a pretty good idea until you look into the standards. It is all very convoluted and complicated for a “knuckle dragger” like myself, so I’ve had to spend a lot of time trying to understand it. I’ve only been waist deep into the FSC-US standards and am only just now getting into the SFI standards, but I can tell you this—we recreationists have some serious work to do with these certifying bodies.

The argument could be clearly made on the FSC-US standards that whether intended or not, they are written such that recreation, and especially motorized recreation, is actually discouraged. That does not bode well for us nor for the communities that surround forests seeking certification.

As the demand for certified forest products grows, privately held forests that have had longstanding partnerships allowing motorized recreation on their land are potentially going to end those relationships. Some already have because of the possible certification hassle.

Extreme anti-access folks see this as “the best thing since sliced bread” when it comes to preventing motorized recreation on public and private lands. They are already working the system in some parts of the country with legal pressure on the certifying bodies.

What makes it so insidious is that it is private sector driven…. It is all marketing. For instance, they don’t have to go by an ESA list. They can just make up their own list that is far more stringent. They aren’t bound by the public processes of NEPA. They set their own standard of how much input the public will have and how.

And, it is huge. Granted, Forest Certification is first taking its foothold in private forests, but it has spread now to be a significant concern for state managed forests to be certified and even the Forest Service has commissioned the Pinchot Institute to do a study on certification on federal lands.

I believe we can do something about it to protect recreational access, but I need to get my arms wrapped around this and I need your help. I need you to put your ear to the ground and let me know what is happening in your area of the country with regard to Forest Certification. I also would really like a couple of you scientific types who are willing to take some time to look into this and help me fully frame the issues. Email me at brgreg@sharetrails.org.