By Tom Kellly
Editor and Publisher

Are loggers to become responsible for certification of "sustainability" of wood supply for paper manufacture? This issue is the subject of a three-state meeting in Jackson, Mississippi on July 13, according to Daniel Dructor of Hemphill, Texas, executive vice president of American Logging Council.

The issue arises from a move by Tembec, a Canadian-owned company which operates a paper mill at St. Francisville, Louisiana, near the Louisiana-Mississippi border. Tembec at St. Francisville is a major supplier of super-coated magazine paper for Time Warner, parent company of Time Magazine and several other major magazine titles. Because of demand from Time Warner that paper it buys for publishing be made from wood which is certified as harvested from sustainably managed forests, Tembec seeks a method to guarantee that 80 percent of its wood supply comes from certified sustainable forests, according to industry sources.

Since Tembec owns no forest lands in its area of supply, it buys from Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek, national corporate landowners, and from non-industrial private landowners in the region. Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek are both certified forest managers under the American Forest & Paper Association's Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or Forest Stewardship Council's certification system, or both. Non-industrial private forest land owners may be certified under the American Tree Farm System, a program designed for them, or under no system at all.

According to ALC executive Dructor, Tembec has suggested that in order to achieve its goal of certification, loggers, who buy timber from a variety of landowners, should be certified, thus qualifying the timber they sell to Tembec as "certified."

Independent logging contractors in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, and other Southern states, have Master Logger training programs--which are not necessarily designed to certify to forest management practices which occur before actual harvest. SFI and other sustainability/certification regimes, regulate practices from planting to harvest and beyond, all of which are under the control of the land owner, consulting forester, herbicide applicator, or other silviculture specialist before the logger enters the picture.

The program for Master Logger certification includes "Best Management Practices," "Streamside Management Zones," "Chain of Custody" records keeping, as well as load limit requirements, financial management, records keeping for taxes, insurance, and a host of other practices which make for successful business management as well as preservation of the timberland during and after harvest.

Says Dructor, "If we (loggers) are going to be responsible for certification of sustainable management, we want to have input into what that means."

Thus the July 13 meeting, which will include foresters, loggers, industry executives, and others involved in the issue.

Louisiana Forestry Association Executive Vice President C.A. (Buck) Vandersteen, said the Tembec issue is, in part at least, "a battle of certfication programs." SFI, an industry-designed program, Forest Stewardship Council, Rainforest Alliance and its Smartwood program, have various requirements for sustainability, and are used by various parts of the forest products industry. American Tree Farm System is older than all of them, and is operated for private non-industrial landowners.

When the SFI and Master Logger programs were started, Louisiana began with about 10 percent compliance. With its continuing education program for loggers, foresters, and landowners, Louisiana is up to 95% compliance. "It gets tougher as we get closer to 100 percent," Vandersteen said.

The LFA executive said, "When a landowner sells timber, he should get a Master Logger, to insure a good job, with the highest environmental standards possible."

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