Forest Certification 

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international, membership-based, non-profit organization that supports environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. FSC Canada was founded in 1996 and is located in Toronto, Ontario.

Forest certification is a voluntary market mechanism through which forests are certified against a strict set of environmental and social standards, and all producers and manufacturers along the supply chain are certified to ensure that the final product bearing the FSC logo actually originated from a certified forest.

Forest Management (FM) certification is the process by which a specific forest management unit is assessed for fulfillment of the standard. If the assessment is positive a FM certificate is issued. Chain of Custody (CoC) certification is the process by which forest products are tracked from the forest all the way to the end consumer. All successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution must receive a CoC certificate for labeled products to be sold.

The Eastern Ontario Model Forest operates the forest certification program in Eastern Ontario. The landowner pays a low annual fee to join, and Model Forest provides expertise to them when it comes to sustainable ways of harvesting wood products. The wood removed is then considered to be "certified wood" which fetches a premium because of sustainable harvesting. They also provide landowners in the program with different workshops around forestry and stewardship. Contact: Scott Davis at 258-8422 http://certification.eomf.on.ca/