The international community, and especially Canada, began to more formally recognize the importance of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) at the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment & Development.  At the conference, specific forest management principles were developed.  Based on these principles, Canada made a commitment to develop a set of criteria and indicators for the sustainable management of its forests.  In 1995, the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) released a framework of 6 criteria and 83 indicators.  The CCFM framework of criteria and indicators provided a science based framework to define and measure Canada’s progress in the sustainable management of its forests. 

The development of forest certification schemes was seen in part, as a response to the emerging importance of sustainable forest management. Sustainable forest management can be defined as a way of identifying the optimal balance of trade offs between social values, and economic needs in the context of the ecological limitations of the forest ecosystem.  The international community, including both consumers and forestry companies, have embraced forest certification as a way to achieve SFM.

The goal of forest certification is to promote forest practices that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable over the long term.  Each stakeholder group or industrial sector has a different view of what certification can achieve.  Environmental groups see certification as a way to verify a landowner or firm’s commitment to sustainable forestry, and as a mechanism to reward, through continued market access, only the very best forest management and to promote an ideal of forest management that mimics natural processes and preserves so-called old growth. 

In contrast, industry and forest owner groups tend to regard certification as a mechanism to promote progressive, step-wise improvement in forest management, while at the same time capturing market share and competitive advantage by communicating their superior environmental performance through certification labels.

Forest certification involves independent verification of good management practices and provides assurance that landowners and forest managers are practicing sustainable forestry according to the guidelines and principles of individual certification systems. 

Currently, there are three dominant third party certification standards promoted in Canada:

	1. Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) - National Standard for Sustainable Forest Management (Z809). This standard was developed by the national standards development body, and relies on the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14001 – environmental management system approach.
	2. Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) - developed by a U.S. industry association (the American Forest & Paper Association) and governed by a multi-stakeholder process.
	3. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - certification developed by an international, membership based non-governmental organization. It was founded in 1993 by representatives from environmental groups, the timber industry, the forestry profession, community groups and indigenous people’s organizations.

All three certification schemes promote sustainable forests and include the requirements for third party audits, respect for Aboriginal rights and involvement, and public disclosure, though each standard places a different emphasis on the importance of these and the standards to which they must adhere.  All three schemes have varying degress of public participation as a component.  Mutual recognition does not currently exist between these standards, meaning that a company that selects one scheme could still be under pressure to also certify to another standard.

Application for certification is generally voluntarily and can be an intensive undertaking.  Candidate organizations have to engage in a detailed analysis of their operations and management systems in order to be eligible.  Independent third parties will  perform intensive audits generally on an annual in order to confirm compliance with certification standards. Failure to comply to the standards established by the certification body will result in an organization losing their ‘certified’ status.

In Alberta, the CSA’s Z809 standard serves as the minimum requirement in the province’s new Forest Management Planning Standard.  As of June 2006, forested lands under the management of Alberta tenure holders were certified under the various schemes to the following extents: CSA – 9.27 million ha (9,949,660m3 AAC), SFI – 2.67 million ha (3,420,000m3 AAC), and FSC – 5.49 million ha (3,027,204m3 AAC).  Canada currently holds the largest amount of certified forests in the world.

An important independent study was released by prominent Yale University professor, Benjamin Cashore in 2004. The study, Global Environmental Forest Policies: Canada as a Constant Case Comparison of Select Forest Practice Regulations, found that Canada’s forest policy regulation and compliance regime is among the most progressive and stringent in the world. Click here to view the report.