The Potential of Sustainable Forestry Certification for Smallholder Tree Growing - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 202

support. Governments can require certification of state owned forests, or can
choose certified timber products in their national procurement policies. Major sup-
port has also come from NGOs, most strongly from the WWF, which has played a
pivotal role in the development of the FSC worldwide.
Globally, there are six important forestry certification initiatives, which work on
the basis of independent (“third party”) verification. These are the Forest
Stewardship Council, the Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes,
the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the Canadian Standard Association, the
American Tree Farm System and the Malaysian Timber Certification Council.
A short description of these programs and organizations is given below.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is housed in Bonn and is an international,
non-profit, non- governmental organization founded in 1993. It is an association of
representatives from environmental and social groups, the timber trade and forestry
profession, indigenous peoples' organizations, community forestry groups and forest
product certification organizations. It is the only system with global principles and
criteria (FSC 2004a). Based on these principles and criteria are 62 national standards,
each with their own adapted criteria and indicators (www.fsc.org).
The Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) is also an
independent, non-profit non-governmental organization, founded in 1999. It started
as a European forest certification program, with the aim of creating a simpler alter-
native to the FSC but it now has a global reach and has consequently changed its
name. It is an umbrella organization that accredits national schemes all over the
world and is currently spread over 18 countries. In contrast to the FSC, this program
explicitly advocates national sovereignty (www.pefc.org). Another difference con-
cerns its main focus on ecological and market aspects.
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a program of the American Forest &
Paper Association. Adherence to the principles of this program is conditional for
the members of this association. It was founded in 1994 and is now endorsed by
PEFC (www.sfiprogram.info).
The American Tree Farm System (ATFS) is a program of the American Forest
Foundation, a national non-profit organization. The ATFS was founded in 1941,
and is the oldest third party forest certification system. It focuses on family forest
owners, of whom 51,000 do participate (www.treefarmsystem.org).
The Canadian Standard Association (CSA) is an independent non-profit organi-
zation for the development of standards. The CSA Sustainable Forest Management
(SFM) Project is part of it and was initiated in 1994, supported by the Canadian
forest industry. Its certification scheme is modeled on the ISO 14000 series and is
endorsed by PEFC (www.csa.ca). Many of the performance criteria are created at a
regional, provincial level, in an interactive process with the stakeholders.
The Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) is an independent Malaysian
non-profit organization for forestry certification. Like the FSC it also has a chain-of-cus-
tody certification. The criteria are set up in line with the FSC criteria and were adopted
in 2002, but it is not endorsed by FSC. Its board includes representatives from academic
and research and development institutions, the timber industry, non-governmental
organizations and government agencies (www.mtcc.com.my).