If being "green" was the spin for business and government in the late 20th century, being "certified" will be the requirement for successful marketing as we enter the 21st century. Certification will be desired, if not required, for everything from government plans and structural lumber to rocking chairs and wild berry preserves. Should we all feel good about this? Are forest certification programs the catalyst for a new era of ecological restoration and sustainability? Well, that depends upon what is behind the certified label.
A little history is in order here. Certified labeling is not new. For many years private firms like the Canadian Standards Association and Underwriters Laboratories in the United States have been guaranteeing us that if we buy a toaster or other appliance with their certified label then, among other things, we will not be electrocuted when we turn it on. More recently various associations and programs, like California Certified Organic and the British Columbia Organic Farmers Association provide labeling assurances that various foods that we eat have been grown and processed in ways that ensure their organic purity. What is interesting about both of these examples is that certification and the labels that accompany them have to do with human health and safety. Producers would lose their markets and certifiers would lose their credibility quickly if people received an electric shock from a certified toaster or got sick from eating certified organic food.
Does the same incentive apply to certified forest products? Maybe for the ones that we eat, like mushrooms, berries and medicinal plants. However, we do not eat two-by-fours or rocking chairs. In most areas, the volumes of these latter types of forest products far outstrip the volumes of the forest products that we eat. There is a growing trend by governments, timber industries, and for-profit certifiers to certify as "sustainable" a wide range of forest practices in order to both gain access to and to profit from the market place. Some certifiers are willing to put their label on wood products from clearcuts, from forest areas managed with pesticides, and/or from tree plantations. If the consumer is not aware of what is permitted under a particular label, they may be purchasing a "sustainable" product certified to sustain short-term monetary profits, not certified to protect forest functioning at all scales through time. This situation is made more creditable and confusing because "captured scientists" have approved the process.
The way out of this dilemma is to insist upon third-party, ecosystem-based certification of forest products. The organizations carrying out this type of certification are not-for-profit certifiers that only recover their costs from certifications, and may offer certification services subsidized by donations or grants from charitable foundations. Ecosystem-based certifiers find their roots in forest activism and in the environmental movement‹the source of forest certification.
There would not be forest certification programs without the creativity of forest activists who recognized that timber cutting and timber management practices could be affected by the market place through the certification of forest products, particularly wood products. Until major pulp and lumber contracts were canceled, the timber industry smugly ignored the fledgling certification efforts of forest activists. However, that has all changed with a growing market insistence that wood products come from sustainable sources.
Enter the timber industry driven American Pulp and Lumber Association (Does Herb mean Am. Forest and Paper Assn.?) and the Canadian Standards Associations certification programs. The timber industry is poised to begin certifying itself. Would you trust a chemical company that certifies that tomatoes sprayed with their products are harmless to your health and contain the same level of nutrition as organically grown tomatoes? Of course not. Then, if you care about the forest that sustains us, you will seriously question industrial certification.
How do you pick the right label? How do you find out what is behind the label? You can start by asking questions such as these: