Nearly one-third of the land area of the United States is covered by forest land. The 750 million acres of U.S. forests are owned both privately—by individuals and corporations—and publicly—by federal, state, and local governments. At the federal level, the Forest Service—an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture—is the principal forest management agency, charged with managing 193 million acres designated mostly as national forests. The Forest Service manages the forest resources under a multiple use-sustained yield mandate, meaning that the agency must balance uses such as providing recreation opportunities, timber supplies, livestock grazing, watershed protection, and fish and wildlife habitats, in a manner that does not impair the productivity of the land for future resource yields. The national forests have been the focus of controversy for many years. Reduced timber harvests, increased wildfire risks, degraded forest health, and disagreements among users and other stakeholders have led to congressional disputes over appropriate management. Some interests have suggested third-party certification of sustainable management of the national forests as a possible solution to many of these difficulties. Sustainable forest certification programs were created in the 1990s as a nongovernmental approach to promote sustainable forest management practices. Sustainable forest management generally requires that the stewardship and use of the forests balance current and future demand for the resources with maintaining ecological, economic, and social functionality. Forest landowners may voluntarily participate in these programs with the goal of gaining a market advantage through independent third-party assessments and product labels to communicate compliance with standards of sustainable management. The standards are developed by different multi-stakeholder groups with little or no government participation. Although initially directed at private forest owners, certification programs have evolved and developed mechanisms to certify public forests. In 1997, the USDA Forest Service declared it would not pursue certification of any of the national forests. However, the certification of several state, Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of Defense (DOD) forests has raised new questions about this policy. In 2005, the Forest Service sponsored a study evaluating the potential certification of the national forests, but the agency has not issued any changes to its certification policy since the study was released in 2007. If Congress determines that the national forests should be subject to certification, Congress could direct the Forest Service to pursue certification for some or all of the 105 national forest administrative units. Certifying the national forests as sustainably managed may have many potential benefits. Certification might demonstrate and emphasize that the management of the national forests is held to high ecological, economic, and social standards. Certification might reduce existing conflicts over management decisions for the national forests, and has the potential to streamline the management process. For example, certification programs have requirements for planning, management, and public involvement programs as well as for measurable performances on the ground. While these requirements currently exist in policy, regulations, or statutes, Congress may consider that certification would be sufficient and could replace the existing structure. In addition, certification of the national forests may provide benefits to the private sector. The timber and wood products industries as well as the "green" products industries may benefit from having access to a greater supply of certified materials. Finally, certifying the sustainability of the national forests may complement other sustainability policy directives, such as federal green purchasing and green building policies. However, certifying the national forests may present some costs, risks, and uncertainties. The certification process would require direct and indirect investments. Direct costs include the initial fee to pay for the audit process, and then whatever annual or semi-annual costs are required to maintain certification. Indirect costs include changes that may be required to earn or maintain certification, such as implementing new monitoring and reporting systems or adjusting harvest levels. These costs may or may not be recovered in improved management, or even in higher stumpage prices for the certified products leaving the national forests. While certification was initially seen as a means to gain market advantages, those expectations have rarely been realized in the domestic U.S. market. In addition, the certification process and maintenance requirements could have the unintended, opposite effect of becoming another layer of administrative complexity for the Forest Service to navigate. This report outlines the history and development of forest certification as a voluntary, market-based mechanism to promote sustainable forest practices. It then describes, compares, and contrasts the two major certification programs used in the United States based on a broad range of sustainable forest management issues pertinent to the National Forest System. Sustainable forest certification programs began essentially as outgrowths from failed international negotiations to address global forest degradation issues at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, in Rio De Janeiro. Amid increasing concern among environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders about the deforestation occurring in developing tropical countries, the international community met to discuss a legally binding global forest policy. However, developing countries were opposed to any legally binding agreement, based mostly on trade concerns. Instead, the process led to the Statement of Forest Principles, a nonbinding set of general economic, environmental, and development guidelines that was largely considered a disappointment in terms of setting a global forest policy. In 1995 the Montreal Process convened as an international effort to define measures of sustainable forest management. Participating nations—including the United States—developed national policy-level criteria and indicators as measures of the principles of sustainable forest management. The criteria and indicators included the conservation of biological diversity; maintaining forest and ecosystem productivity; conserving soil and water resources; maintaining global carbon cycles; maintaining long-term socioeconomic benefits; and a legal and institutional framework for sustainable forest management. The Montreal Process, along with the Forest Principles, formed a framework of economic, environmental, and social definition and measure of sustainable forest management that was carried forward by the forest certification programs. In the absence of governmental mechanisms, the NGO community turned to private-sector tools to promote sustainable forest management. In 1993, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification standard was developed by the World Wildlife Fund and other NGOs. As a voluntary certification and labeling system, the FSC standard was intended to leverage the growing consumer demand for sustainable wood products and use market incentives to promote sustainable forest operations. The FSC is registered as a nonprofit organization headquartered in Oaxaca, Mexico. Although the initial impetus for the development of the program was to protect tropical forests, FSC is a global standard that also applies to temperate and boreal forests. As such, the FSC principles of sustainable forest management apply globally, but regional, national, and even subnational standards may be created to adapt to local conditions. In 1995, the U.S. chapter of the FSC was formed in Minneapolis and is responsible for developing and publishing the U.S. standard applicable to the lower 48 states. The FSC-US is further divided into nine regions, with regionally specific guidance built into the standard. As of July 2011, the FSC had certified 353 million acres of private and public forest land in 79 countries ( Figure 1 ), including 33 million acres in the United States ( Figure 2 ), as sustainably managed. After 1993, other certification programs soon emerged to compete with the FSC program. In particular, programs emerged from various industry groups. In North America in 1994, the American Forests & Paper Association (AF&PA) established the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) to focus on sustainable forest production in the United States, and later expanded it to include Canada. The initial SFI program was developed entirely by wood products industry representatives, with no external stakeholder participation. Participation became mandatory for AF&PA members, but firms could self-select which criteria to measure and could self-report compliance. Market pressures have forced the SFI standard to undergo significant substantive and structural changes to compete with the FSC standard. The SFI standard now requires third-party audits, is independent from the AF&PA, and is a registered nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. As of April 2011, the SFI had certified 58 million acres private and public forest land in the United States as sustainably managed ( Figure 2 ). Several other certification programs emerged in the 1990s, but competition and consolidation left two global programs—the FSC and its primary global competitor, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Numerous other programs operate at national or regional levels. In North America, there are two national programs—one for Canada and the SFI for North America. Smaller programs, such as the American Tree Farm System, also operate in the United States. However, the SFI and FSC programs are the two major certification programs that would apply to the national forests. The PEFC program is a global umbrella organization for different national certification programs, providing a common label to facilitate trade in a global market. The PEFC is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Originating in Europe, the PEFC was first initiated by landowner groups, and now also includes industry interest groups. The PEFC endorses national programs using a third-party verification process based on internationally developed sustainability benchmarks. In 2005, the PEFC endorsed the SFI standard, and the SFI Board of Directors serves as the governing body for the U.S. chapter of the PEFC. As of July 2011, the PEFC had 35 national members, and had certified the sustainable management of 576 million acres ( Figure 1 ) through the endorsement of 30 national certification programs. Since the PEFC program works by endorsing other national certification programs, the PEFC program would not apply directly to the national forests. The other national system operating in North America is the Canadian Standards Association Sustainable Forest Management System (CSA-SFM). Developed in 1996 at the request of the Canadian forest products industry association, the CSA-SFM is Canada's official national standard for sustainable forest management and is endorsed by the PEFC.