Attempts to define sustainability divide forestry industry

By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI

Capital Press

Logging in the city of Forest Grove's 4,400-acre municipal watershed is held to a rigorous environmental standard.

Clearcuts are no larger than 5 acres, old growth stands are left intact and hardwood trees are retained for songbird habitat, among other practices.

"They don't look like industrial clearcuts when they're done," said Scott Ferguson. His company, Trout Mountain Forestry, manages the property.

Preserving the Oregon city's drinking water quality is a major motivation for this management strategy, but so is maintaining the forest's sustainable certification from the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC.

When Ferguson first began helping his customers attain FSC certification in the late 1990s, landowners primarily wanted to prove their legitimacy as responsible forest managers, he said.

"Now, it seems to be much more market-driven," said Barry Sims, a partner in the company.

The market for ecologically harvested "green" wood is expanding partly due to the popularity of a program called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, in the building industry, he said.

"That's been a very important demand driver," said Sims.

However, the growth of the prominence of the certification programs has also generated controversy.

The recognition of the Forest Stewardship Council under the LEED program has raised the ire of a competing nonprofit group that certifies forest management practices, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

Under the LEED program, a building earns points by incorporating a variety of energy efficient and environmentally friendly features, such as using FSC-certified wood.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative feels it has been unfairly excluded from LEED, particularly since not all wood branded with the FSC logo is harvested under the same standards, said Jason Metnick, SFI's senior director of market access and product labeling.

"FSC is not the same if it's FSC Russia versus FSC America versus FSC Brazil. They each vary in rigor," he said. "People believe there's just one FSC standard."

According to the Coalition for Fair Forest Certification, which supports SFI, the regional variability has the effect of discriminating against U.S. timber producers.

Forest managers in much of the U.S. are held to an unreasonably high standard by FSC while foreign producers generally are not, the group claims.

For example, the FSC limits the size of clearcuts on the Pacific Coast of the U.S., but not in forests in Russia, Sweden and New Zealand, according to the group. Tree retention requirements within clearcuts are also generally stricter on the Pacific Coast than elsewhere.

The coalition has asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether the FSC uses unfair and deceptive practices to mislead and confuse consumers.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative has also been targeted with complaints to the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

An environmental group, ForestEthics, claims that SFI was spawned by the American Forest and Paper Association, a trade group, and continues to be dominated by timber companies.

The group contends that SFI shouldn't enjoy nonprofit tax status because it is "organized, governed and operated more like an industry trade organization" with a hefty advertising focus.

ForestEthics alleges that SFI's forestry standards are deceptively vague and meant to legitimize the status quo of commercial timber production without taking concrete steps to enhance the health of wildlife habitat and streams.

Whereas the FSC standards are actually enforceable and verified by auditors, the SFI system is largely aspirational and relies on recommendations rather than requirements, said Corey Brinkema, president of the Forest Stewardship Council U.S.

"One has to have a plan to do something, but one doesn't have to do something," he said.

Brinkema said the accusation that FSC is lenient with foreign timber producers mischaracterizes its certification system.

The basic principles of ecologically sensitive forest management are the same throughout all the FSC regions, he said. Groups of local stakeholders in each region decide how those principles are specifically implemented.

Though some areas don't have quantitative limits on clearcut sizes, forest managers must nonetheless preserve ecological values, Brinkema said. "We think it's a major strength of the FSC system that we don't have a one-size-fits-all approach."

Members of the group that runs the LEED program -- the U.S. Green Building Council -- are caught in the middle of the fight.

Last year, the council tried adopting a benchmark system that would open LEED to additional forestry certifications, providing they met the criteria. The group's membership did not pass the proposal. Both FSC and SFI voted against it.

Next year, the council will finish overhauling its rating system for LEED and may reevaluate how certifications are used, said Brendan Owens, its vice president for technical development.

He acknowledges that finding consensus between the two camps won't be easy.

"The reality we're dealing with here is a fragmented group of stakeholders who in some cases hold diametrically opposed viewpoints on the same issue," Owens said. "Essentially you have both sides throwing sound bites at everybody. There have been significant opportunities that have been lost."