Forestry Certification
What is the Certification?
For the last 10 years, deforestation of tropical forests threatens our planet’s ecological balance. To counter this phenomenon, environmental groups have put in place norms and certifications allowing forest harvesting while maintaining the long term diversity and productivity of forest ecosystems. This is called responsable forestry. These norms have quickly spread across forests worldwide. The Eastern Townships certification project targets the Forest Stewardship Council® certification, most commonly known as FSC®.
Products from FSC® certified forests and other responsible sources may be labeled with the FSC logo. This way, by purchasing these products, consumers worldwide know that they have contributed to responsible forest development.
Aménagement Forestier et Agricole des Sommets Inc. is actually, since January 2010, FSC certified with four other forest management groups, as well as the Syndicat des Producteurs de Bois de l'Estrie.
The FSC® management system rests on the respect of 10 principles to which numerous sets of criteria have been attached. Attached are the 10 principles, and in bold, the impact of these principles.
Is there demand for FSC certified products?
Demand has been strong for many years. Many company organisations have already opted for FSC certified products:
• Ecological LEED housing construction,
• Governmental and parallel governmental organisations,
• Editing houses,
• Building material stores (Rona),
• Large corporations (Bell, BRP, Toyota...).
Why certify your forest?
Aménagement forestier et Agricole des Sommets’ shareholders take advantage in certifying their property.
• To obtain an additional guarantee that their forest will be reorganized according to high quality standards,
• To answer to growing consumer demand and organisations of certified products,
• To conserve their market positions, and even gain new ranks,
• To eventually obtain plus-value of their wood.
Certification in the Eastern Townships
The Certification project in the Eastern Townships has been put together by the Syndicat des producteurs de bois de l'Estrie SPBE with the participation of five regional forestry groups (groupements forestiers OGC). The partnership which your company is part of has been working on the project for two years already. The main documents carried out up to now consist of choosing the type of forestry certification that would best respond to landowner’s needs while verifying subscription laws and determining existing gaps between our present practices and certification requirements.
Once these steps completed, the committee formed the SPBE and OGC representatives to establish directives for forestry practices compatible with the certification’s requirements.
Since january 2010, 5 OGC of the Eastern Townships are FSC certified. In the futur, each year, we will be verified Rainforest Alliance® to check the work we do in forest and in the office to keep our FSC® certification in place.
What does it imply?
In order to become certified you must:
• Respect all laws and regulations,
• Respect the objectives of your forestry management plan,
• Respect health and safety rules during you work in the forest,
• Declare the volumes of wood harvested from your property,
• Reduce disturbance of water ways and the environment,
• Protect endangered species and extraordinary sites.
More precisely, a landowner engaged in an FSC procedure must respect the 10 principals known by this certification. You should fin, for each principal, a general comment (in bold) about its influence on our daily reality.
