The Forest Stewardship Council is an independent nonprofit that oversees the evaluation of forests worldwide. It measures forestlands against a set of tough standards and requires public disclosure of just what is happening on the ground in the woods where the trees are harvested. If products carry the Forest Stewardship Council label, you can feel confident that they were produced from commercially managed forestlands that are among the best in their class. And it s not just picture frames that are Forest Stewardship Council certified. Increasingly, Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood is being used to produce consumer goods like guitars, tables, chairs, garden furniture and window boxes as well as paper.
Certified wood is also available for home-improvement projects like kitchen cabinets and flooring.
When you look for products made from certified well-managed forests, it is important not to be misled by a lookalike program funded by the forest products industry. Recently, the forest products industry ran ads in many Maine newspapers touting the number of acres that have been audited. In doing so, they lumped lands that have passed a truly independent test certified by the Forest Stewardship Council with lands that have merely gone through an industry-controlled no one can fail exercise. Unfortunately, they mixed apples and oranges. In Maine, roughly 1.5 million acres have been certified as well-managed by the Forest Stewardship Council, including lands managed by Seven Islands Land Co., J.D. Irving, Two Trees Forestry and Mid Maine Forestry.