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Stepwise Approach
Although forest certification is an effective tool for recognizing wood and paper products that come from well-managed forests, the standards of forest management necessary for certification are beyond the immediate capacity of many small forest operations, particularly in developing countries. Many of these companies, community groups and families lack the technical knowledge and financial means to manage their forest operations to the standards set by certification systems. Under these circumstances, certification may not be achievable without outside assistance during a transition period.
Some public agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and businesses that buy wood products are working to improve forest management in developing countries using various stepwise approaches. Typically, forest managers agree to implement various forest management improvements progressively within a set time, and are technically assisted by NGOs and/or government agencies. Some wood and paper purchasing businesses may agree to continue purchasing products from participating forest operations during the transition period as incentive.
Examples of programs that offer a stepwise approach include:
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The World Wildlife Fund’s Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) is a group of entities around the world that share the common aim of promoting trade in certified forest products as a means of improving forest management practices. Upon joining, forest management and production companies commit to become independently certified within a pre-defined time period and must develop a work plan with specific performance objectives. |
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The Tropical Forest Trust (TFT) is an organization that derives funding from member companies that invest a fixed percentage of their forest products gross margin in TFT. This funding is used to support TFT’s work with suppliers in their efforts to eliminate illegal logging and proceed toward certification. In exchange for their investment, contributing companies gain preferential access to suppliers working with TFT to improve the environmental and social attributes of their forest products. |
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SGS Malaysia Certification Support Program is an auditing service structured to assist forest management operations in Asia and Latin America to develop a program to meet national and international forest management standards. The program also helps entities implement a system for tracking raw material sources from the forest and through the supply chain. |
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The Tropical Forest Foundation Reduced Impact Logging Verified Program is an effort to partner producers and consumers; track the origin of wood; and verify legality and reduced impact logging practices. Reduced impact logging (RIL) is a forest management technique that emphasizes pre-harvest planning activities as a way of reducing the environmental impact on extracting trees from the forest. Unlike the above effort, the RIL verified program does not have the specific objective of positioning companies to become certified. Nevertheless, this effort teaches sustainable forest management and legality through verification, and recognizes those companies participating in sustainable forest management practices, which are important building blocks that could lead to eventual forest certification. |
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SmartStep is a Rainforest Alliance SmartWood program designed to offer forest landowners an incremental approach to achieving FSC certification . The SmartStep process includes an analysis of current practices compared against FSC requirements, a multi-year action plan for attaining FSC certification, a written contract with mutual obligations, and public reporting by SmartStep and Smartwood. To qualify for the SmartStep program forest management operations must meet minimum legal, social, and environmental requirements. |
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