Sustainable Forestry

Sustainable forestry consists of management practices that ensure the health and growth of our forests for future generations.

As our population expands and our economy grows, responsible people are concerned about our forests. They want assurances that our forests will always be there.

The U.S. forest and paper industry shares this concern. Companies that rely on healthy and productive forestland for their livelihood have a keen self-interest in making certain that forests remain healthy and productive. The relationship between a healthy, productive forest and the forest and paper industry is elementary: no forest, no industry.

The U.S. forest and paper industry has answered these concerns with a bold new commitment to long-term forestry. It's called the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), a comprehensive program of forestry and conservation practices designed to ensure that future generations of Americans will have the same abundant forests that we enjoy today. It's the largest sustainable forestry and certification program in the world, encompassing nearly 94 million acres of forestland throughout North America and over four million acres in Florida.

Leading conservationists have already hailed the SFI. Patrick Noonan, chairman of the Conservation Fund, calls the initiative "a bold program" that represents "a substantial and meaningful commitment" to the cause of sustainable forestry.

The SFI was developed in 1995 by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), a national trade group that represents forest and paper companies. AF&PA assembled a task force of experienced professional foresters who spent 18 months crafting the SFI.

This careful collaboration produced an ambitious set of forest principles and detailed guidelines that require companies to reforest harvested land promptly, provide for wildlife habitat, improve water quality and ecosystem diversity, and protect forestland of special ecological significance.

Once an initial set of principles and guidelines had been developed, the early challenges were to solidify a commitment to sustainable forestry practices among AF&PA's member companies. Then began the enormous task of spreading the SFI message to other stakeholders and forest ownership groups-loggers, private landowners, publicly managed lands, and even across international boundaries. The work regarding SFI will continue to grow as the program continues to expand.