The growing amount of North American Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certified timber product on the market is providing architects with a wider choice of material.

The SFI's 11th annual progress report highlights the efforts of 219 SFI programme participants in applying the standard on more than 137 million acres of forestland in the US and Canada – and on tens of millions of additional acres from which they purchase wood fibre.

Areas of progress include the fact that 94% of the wood fibre used by SFI participants was delivered by professional loggers who have completed comprehensive sustainable forestry training programmes.

Another highlight is the establishment of 37 state, regional and provincial SFI implementation committees.

More than 6,400 more loggers and foresters were trained in 2005, bringing the total to 97,174 trained since 1995.

During 2005, 1.2 million acres of SFI programme participants’ forests were reforested, either through planting or natural regeneration. This continual improvement has seen an investment of US$799m by SFI programme participants in sustainable forestry research since 1995. Since then more than 5.9 billion SFI trees have been planted.

The progress report can be viewed online at www.aboutsfb.org.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend