Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard enhanced with new measures to protect bi...( Washington DC July 2 2002 - The Sust...)

Washington, DC, July 2, 2002 - The Sustainable Forestry Board (SFB) today announced stronger provisions for the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard (SFIS), which will be applied to more than 60 million acres in the United States and Canada. The American Forest & Paper Association, the largest U.S. timber industry trade association whose members include manufacturers of over 80 percent of the paper, wood and forest products produced in the United States, will require all its members to apply the standard to their certified operations.

The Sustainable Forestry Board is an independent group of conservationists, forestry industry leaders, academicians and other experts. The new standards, which go beyond current federal endangered species legislation, will help identify and protect imperiled species and sites on industry-managed lands in North America, combat illegal logging internationally, and promote natural forest conservation in the biodiversity hotspots and major wilderness areas.

"For nearly a year, the SFB has been collaborating with scientists, foresters, the conservation community, private landowners and the forest products industry to improve the SFI Standard in order to enhance the identification and protection of forests with exceptional conservation value," said Mr. Colin Moseley, Chairman of the SFB and Chairman of Simpson Investment Company. "For participants in the SFI program, these new enhancements represent a significant step forward in the protection of imperiled forests. This further demonstrates how the SFI program is committed to being one of the world's most credible and successful sustainable forestry and certification programs."

In designing the changes to the SFI standard for North America, SFB members worked with NatureServe, a non-profit scientific organization that is a leading provider of high-quality information about species and ecosystems that make up the natural world.

Under these new measures, de
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Contact: Jason Anderson
j.anderson@conservation.org
202-912-1464
Conservation International
2-Jul-2002

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