From the Oregonian, by Michael Milstein
Oregon's Mount Hood and Siuslaw national forests will join four others nationally in assessing their logging and other practices against standards now widely employed in private and international settings for environmentally sound and sustainable forestry.
It marks the first test by the U.S. Forest Service, the nation's largest manager of public forests, of two certification programs designed to provide new oversight and accountability in forest management.
Millions of acres of commercial and public forests worldwide have been certified under the two systems. Both require outside experts in fields such as logging and wildlife protection to review forest practices and report on the results.
One of the programs was launched by the timber industry, and the other is more widely embraced by environmental groups. There is debate about the differences.
The move by the Forest Service, which oversees a quarter of Oregon's land area, follows its adoption of another international program for outside auditing of its forest planning system. Officials said it would help the often-criticized agency demonstrate the nation's forests are well-managed.
The Forest Service is commonly blamed by environmentalists for cutting too many trees and by the timber industry for not cutting enough. Protection for the northern spotted owl and other wildlife following heavy logging in the 1980s brought cutting in Northwest national forests to a near-standstill.
Forest certification is a kind of environmental seal of approval rapidly gaining ground nationally and internationally. Commercial forests run by many large timber companies and state forests in Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Maine and elsewhere either are certified or are undergoing certification. Retailers such as Home Depot give preference to suppliers that provide wood from certified forests.
National forests have been conspicuously missing from the trend, and criticism has increased as the Bush administration has tried to accelerate logging.
Advocates say independent certification offers an extra selling point for timber from well-managed forests, and it can reduce controversy by assuring the public that forests adhere to established principles.
"It will really boost the public trust in the agency," said Al Sample, president of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, a nonprofit organization that is coordinating the review of the national forests. "People will see they don't have to watch the Forest Service like a hawk, that they don't have to sue the Forest Service all the time."
Not seeking certification yet
Forest Service officials emphasize they are not yet seeking actual environmental certification for the national forests. Rather, they want their management of national forests to be measured against the standards of the certification programs.
That will tell them whether the federal forests meet the standards or whether they need to change practices to meet the standards. They then will decide whether to pursue certification for those or other forests.
"Certification has become part of the global vocabulary," said Dan Jiron, a Forest Service spokesman. "As an agency, we think, 'Why wouldn't we look at these things?' "
The national forests undergoing the assessments include the Mount Hood and Siuslaw in Oregon, Chequamegon-Nicolet in Wisconsin, Medicine Bow in Wyoming, Allegheny in Pennsylvania and the national forests of Florida. The reviews will be paid for with donations raised by the Pinchot Institute.
Companies buying wood from the Siuslaw National Forest might benefit from forest certification through improved markets for their products, said Mary Zuschlag, natural resources staff officer at the Siuslaw, west of Corvallis. She said it could give the agency more credibility as a leader in sustainable forest management.
Sample said the Pinchot Institute already has examined laws and regulations that apply to six national forests, including the Mount Hood, and found that they meet or exceed the standards of both certification programs.
"We already know that if the Forest Service is adhering to the rules that apply to them, they're already eligible for certification," he said.
Two programs differ
The two programs are the Sustainable Forest Initiative, backed by the American Forest and Paper Association, and the Forest Stewardship Council. SFI is more widely applied to commercial forests in the United States, but many environmental groups say it is an industry rubber stamp and argue FSC is more stringent.
Sandi Scheinberg of Bark, a local forest protection group, doubted the Mount Hood National Forest could meet FSC standards because of practices that include logging of old-growth trees and sensitive wildlife habitat.
Even if the forest could meet the standards, they were designed for private lands, so they are not an appropriate yardstick for the national forest, she said.
FSC policy would require new, separate standards for certification of federal forests, said Michael Washburn, FSC vice president for forestry and marketing. However, he said the Forest Service's move reflects the increasing role of forest certification.
"Obviously they're responding to an increased global expectation that the largest players in the industry are holding themselves to certain standards," he said.
Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council, an industry group in Portland, said the assessments could reveal the Forest Service is not managing forests through logging and other means to keep the forests and local communities healthy.
"We're proud of our record of producing wood sustainably," he said. "It's time that the federal government look to see if they're truly sustainable, because sustainability means sustainably producing wood."
