(26) Forest Stewardship Council Resource Manager Certification: Program Impacts and Prospects

Frederick W. Cubbage, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

Session: poster session

Forest certification has been in effect for more than a decade, providing increasing opportunity to examine its merits and impacts.  Certification has been promoted as a tool for broader public acceptance of forest management and for achieving environmental, social, and economic benefits on certified forests. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is promoted actively by environmental and social non-government organizations, and should appeal to forest landowners with a strong environmental ethic.

We surveyed all FSC certified Resource Managers in the United States to determine how certification has impacted their management of small, non-industrial forestlands, and how well it has met their objectives. Eighteen resource managers who manage approximately 700,000 certified acres across 13 states responded to our survey, a 50% response rate.

Results show that managers had to make an average of six forest management changes with FSC certification, four economic/system implementation changes and two social/legal changes.  The changes cited most often were chain of custody implementation (78%). forest management plan (72%), forest inventory program (50%) and program reporting (50%).  Only 3 managers reported having no changes required to obtain or maintain their certification (17%). Of the possible benefits that certification can provide, corporate social responsibility was rated highest, followed by strategic position of organization, and professional image. Of the possible disadvantages, respondents rated audit costs, time and preparation costs and too much record keeping as the most important. Across four broad categories of benefits, strategic position; better internal management, records, training morale and science; and signaling stewardship to external groups were moderately achieved, whereas improved market share or prices was minimally achieved. Overall, respondents felt that the benefits of FSC certification are about equal to or very slightly outweigh the costs, but most said that they would “probably” maintain their certification in the future.

Susan E. Moore
Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources
North Carolina State University
Campus Box 8008
Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA
Phone: 919-515-3184
Fax 919-515-6883
susan_moore@ncsu.edu