The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the worldwide forestry certification body, has been under pressure for some time to relax aspects of its standards for forest certification. It is a fine line to walk – standards must be strict enough to protect forests and yet open enough so that operations can reasonably meet them.
FSC has made the difficult decision to relax two of its standards. To encourage more companies to participate in certification, chip and fiber products can carry the FSC label if only 30 percent of the wood comes from a certified forest (reduced from 70 percent). The bar will be raised back to 50 percent by 2005.
Second, to address the very high handling costs involved in separating certified from non-certified products one by one, the FSC label can be applied to groups of similar products, such as fence poles.
In another development, the 1,070 hectare Hayami Forest is the first forest in Japan to receive FSC certification. “As a major player in Pacific Rim trade, certification is an important step for Japan to take,” explains Debbie Hammel of Scientific Certification Systems, the certifying agent. The FSC logo will appear on Japanese products, heightening awareness of sustainable forestry on the part of the industry and Japanese citizens.
Two local mills that produce products from the Hayami Forest are also certified. The Maruta Shiozaki Shouten mill makes sawn timbers (square poles) and lumber and
Woodmake Kitamura makes household wood products like cutting boards and paperweights.
Forest Stewardship Council: [sorry this link is no longer available]
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