Talk about a rewarding start to 2010! We just launched our new standard.
You’ll see our new standard improves conservation of biodiversity, recognizes emerging issues such as climate change and bioenergy, and expands logger training in North America. It has made our fiber sourcing requirements stronger, and complements SFI activities aimed at avoiding controversial or illegal offshore fiber sources.
The review that led to the new standard certainly demonstrated the power of our partnerships – kudos to everyone involved.
We also began 2010 as the largest single forest certification standard in the world – more than 180 million acres (73 million hectares) are certified to the SFI forest management standard in North America.
Our new standard, our expanded partnerships and our growth mean we are in a great position to keep leading the push for improved forest practices and more certified forests.
This puts us in a position of responsibility that we take very seriously. We may not certify forests outside North America but our work definitely has a global reach, and a global impact. We cannot act alone, but we certainly can remain leaders in helping raise awareness of the value of forest certification.
In 2010, we’ll be reaching out to anyone who cares about forest management to work with us – not to promote one standard but to show how credible forest certification can make a difference. I hope you’ll join us.
Kathy
