Certification

Certification complements Canada’s comprehensive and rigorous forest management laws and regulations, and is embraced by companies as a way of further improving their sustainable forest management practices.

Third-party certification provides assurance that a forest company is operating legally and sustainably and in compliance with world-recognized standards for sustainable forest management. Forest certification has different benefits for different groups:

• Consumers can consider certification as a factor in their buying decisions
• Certification can help companies demonstrate that they are responsible forest managers
• The public can value certification for its role in improving forest practices around the world

Since it emerged in the 1990s, forest certification has been adopted quickly across Canada. As of December 2010, Canada had 149. 8 million hectares of independently certified forest land, which amounts to the largest area of certified forests in the world. About one-third of the country's forests are now certified under at least one of three systems: the Canadian Standards Association, the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

Although these systems differ from one another, all three are based on standards that reflect the current understanding of what sustainable forest management entails. According to the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (Canada: embracing third-Party certification), all three certification systems in Canada do the following:

• Involve independent third-party audits that assess a forest operation's planning, procedures, systems and performance against predetermined standards
• Require annual surveillance audits and public disclosure of findings through audit reports
• Require involvement with affected Aboriginal Peoples to make sure that Aboriginal rights are respected
• Offer chain-of-custody certification (see below)
• Reinforce the basics of sound forest management by requiring that laws be obeyed, such that harvested areas be promptly reforested, and that no unauthorized or illegal logging occur
• Go beyond simple timber production by ensuring the conservation of biodiversity

The standards that forest certification is based on are not static over time, nor are people's expectations for what certification should demonstrate. Certification standards must evolve to keep pace with changing knowledge and concerns about sustainable forest management.

For instance, members of the Forest Products Association of Canada have signed a commitment to purchase and use wood from legal sources only, as well as a Traceability Commitment that provides additional documented assurance that all of their fibre is from well-managed and legal sources. In many countries, including some that compete with Canada in the global market, unauthorized and illegal logging has become a serious problem. But because of forest laws, policies, monitoring and strong enforcement by the Government of Canada and its provincial and territorial counterparts, the problem is extremely rare here.