- Canada leads the world with more land certified to voluntary, market-based forest certification programs than any other country.
- Third-party certification complements Canada's comprehensive and rigorous forest management laws and regulations
- The three certification systems used in Canada all contribute significantly to sustainable forest management and to give customers added assurance that the products they are buying come from sustainably managed forests.
The three systems used in Canada are the Canadian Standards Association's Sustainable Forest Management Standard (CSA), the Forest Stewardship Council Standards (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). By December 2007, more than 138 million hectares of Canadian forest were certified - an area more than twice the size of France.
All three certification systems used in Canada:
- Include independent, third-party audits through which auditors measure the planning, procedures, systems and performance of on-the-ground forest operations against predetermined standards.
- Require annual surveillance audits and public disclosure of findings through audit reports, and engagement with affected Aboriginal peoples to ensure Aboriginal rights are respected.
- Offer chain-of-custody certification.
- Reinforce the basics of good forest management by requiring that harvested areas are promptly reforested, that laws are obeyed and that no unauthorized or illegal logging takes place.
- Go beyond simple timber production by ensuring the conservation of biological diversity.
The Forest Products Association of Canada is the first trade association in the world to require as a condition of membership that member companies certify all of their operations to one of three respected certification programs.
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