Tropical timber

Quality

Certification
Grading rules and related standards

Certification

Demand for certified forest products (CFPs) is growing, driven by public procurement and corporate governance responsibility policies. CFPs bear labels indicating that they come from forests that meet standards for sustainable forest management (SFM). Consumers might find labels on end-use products, while manufacturers can verify the sources through the certification scheme's chain-of-custody (CoC) procedures.

Certified forest area increased by over 12 per cent from 2005, reaching 270 million hectares by mid-2006, or approximately 7 per cent of the world's forests (estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) at 3.9 billion hectares). This marks a relatively steep increase since the first third-party certification of forest area took place in 1993 by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). While the original driver for certification might have been uncontrolled deforestation in the tropics, in practice, certification remains largely confined to the northern hemisphere's temperate and boreal forests, and to developed countries. More than half of the world's certified forest is in North America, with around one third in the EU/EFTA region.

Considerably less tropical forests are certified for sustainable forest management according to independent, internationally-recognized certification programmes (approximately 1 per cent of all certified forests). Besides, much of the limited areas of tropical forests that are independently certified consist of plantations. Lack of certification for natural tropical forests can impede access to markets that demand such certification for products from natural tropical forests.

Geographical distribution of total certified forest area, 2005-2006 (%)

Source: UNECE/FAO Forest Products Annual Market Review, 2005 and 2006 editions.
Note: EU25. EECCA represents Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (CIS). Certified forest area includes area certified by FSC, PEFC, CSA, SFI, ATFS (forests which are not independently certified, and process certification schemes such as ISO 14001, are not included in this analysis).

Major certification systems include:

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - 28 per cent of the area certified globally;
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), formerly known as the Pan European Forest Certification System - accounting for 23 per cent of the certified forest area;
The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) system, endorsed by PEFC in 2005 - 26 percent;
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) in the United States and Canada, also endorsed by PEFC in 2005) - 20 per cent;
The American Tree Farm System (ATFS) - 3 per cent.

As the CSA scheme and the SFI scheme were endorsed by PEFC in 2005, the total market share of the combined systems that are allowed to use the PEFC label on their CFPs has increased to more than two thirds.

Most of the PEFC-certified forest area lies in the northern hemisphere (i.e. non-tropical zones). The share in the tropics is less than 1 per cent. Gabon is the first African country producing wood under the PEFC label. The CERFLOR Brazilian Program of Forest Certification was also endorsed by the PEFC Council in 2005.

Regional distribution of certified forest area by PEFC, 2006 (%)

Source: PEFC website.
Note: EU25.

The spread of forests certified by FSC is more diverse than PEFC. In Latin America and the Caribbean, in particular, a total of 4.15 million hectares (2.2 per cent of the natural forest production permanent forest estate (PFE) and 60 per cent of the estimated area under SFM) have been certified under this scheme, including 2.21 million hectares in Bolivia, 1.16 million hectares in Brazil, 520,000 hectares in Guatemala and 163,000 hectares in Mexico's tropical forests. However, the overwhelming majority of FSC-certified forest still lies in the northern hemisphere.

Regional distribution of certified forest area by FSC, 2006 (%)

Source: FSC website.
Note: The category "Other Europe and Russia" includes Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. EU25.

Tropical countries are increasingly developing national schemes. The main advances in certification have been in Malaysia, where the Government started to develop a national timber certification scheme (the Malaysian Timber Certification Council - MTCC) in 1998: some 4.62 million hectares of natural-forest production PFE are now certified. The MTCC is actively cooperating with the FSC and the PEFC to seek their endorsement. Indonesia also has its own scheme, the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute (Lembaga Ekolobel Indonesia - LEI), although it has only just started to be operationalized: a total of 275,000 hectares of natural forest have been certified, some of which has also been endorsed by the FSC scheme. ITTO is supporting a large project in collaboration with the African Timber Organization (ATO) to implement a harmonized set of principles, criteria and indicators in common member countries, with the eventual goal of contributing to pan-African forest certification. Several other tropical countries are seeking support from ITTO and others for the development of national certification schemes.

Unlike the situation in the African and Asia-Pacific regions, a single standard - that developed by the FSC - has so far been used in Latin America and the Caribbean as the main vehicle for the assessment of forests for certification.

Organizations such as ITTO are promoting the idea of a "phased approach" to forest certification by which forest management units would gradually move towards full compliance with a sustainable forest management standard and receive full certification within a pre-determined time period. See further:
ITTO International Workshop on Phased Approaches to Certification;
ITTO's resources related to certification;
The PEFC Council’s position towards the phased approach to certification.

Selected information sources

The UNECE Timber Committee (TC) monitors markets for CFPs, while the FAO European Forestry Commission follows developments in forest certification (FC). They jointly publish a series of reports on forest certification and certified forest products, including:
Certified Forest Products Marketplace (Annual chapters from the UNECE/FAO Forest Products Annual Market Review);
The Status of Forest Certification in the UNECE Region (Geneva Timber and Forest Discussion Papers).

The various processes aimed at establishing criteria and indicators for ascertaining the status of forest management (also, CFP and SFM certification websites) include:
ITTO Criteria and Indicators (Criteria and Indicators for the Measurement of Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests in 2004);
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC);
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC);
AF&PA Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI);
Canadian Standards Association (CSA) "Forest Products Marking" programme;
American Tree Farm System;
Certified Forest Products Council;
Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC);
Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute (LEI).

Given the importance and complexity of certification issues, a number of observers monitor and assess schemes and developments, either through studies or by maintaining websites. Examples are: Certification Watch, WWF's Global Forest & Trade Network and FERN.

Grading rules and related standards

Tropical timber grading rules are essential in enabling uniform classification of timber quality, and are therefore critical to the development of the timber trade.

Timber grading rules in producing countries

In producing countries, the best known rules for sawnwood are the Malaysian Grading Rules (MGR) for Sawn Hardwood Timber, issued by the Malaysian Timber Industry Board, the Grading Authority in Malaysia. Export of graded sawn timber from Malaysia must conform with the MGR.

Plywood products are certified to international standards including: Japan Agriculture Standards (JAS), British Standards (BS), International Hardwood Products Association Standards (IHPA) for the United States market, and Harmonised European Standards (EN) for Europe.