In July 2003, Maine’s Governor John Baldacci set a very ambitious goal for the owners of Maine’s forestland. By 2007, he wants to see 10 million acres of Maine forestland green-certified, meaning the management of that land would conform to high standards set by a credible certification system and that performance would be confirmed by third-party audit. Baldacci said, “The purpose of this initiative is to help grow Maine’s forest industry by distinguishing Maine products in the marketplace while improving forest management and long-term forest resource sustainability.”
There are 17.3 million acres of productive timberland in Maine, so the certification of 10 million acres would indeed show a remarkable voluntary commitment on the part of landowners. Such an ambitious goal could only be plausible in Maine, with its long history of large tracts of industrial land, most of them still intact despite the recent and remarkable series of land sales, largely to timberland investment companies (TIMOs).
Baldacci formed a Certification Advisory Committee consisting of 23 members representing the forest products industry, landowners, the conservation community, consulting foresters and loggers, and academia to determine how best to meet the 10 million acre goal. Given the diverse makeup of the committee, and the controversy inherent in any discussion of certification, it’s not a surprise that the final report to the governor was not endorsed on all points by all participants. For instance, there continue to be concerns over the relative credibility of the standards for the various certification systems. Committee members did agree that there should be another goal supplemental to the governor’s: that 60 percent of the wood harvested in Maine be from green-certified sources. They reasoned that, because the harvest volume has remained stable in recent years, a goal based on volume would be a better measure of sustainability than one based on acres, which will likely fluctuate over the years as holdings change hands.
Currently, there are approximately seven million acres in Maine certified through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), or the American Tree Farm (ATF) System, and Maine does indeed have the largest percentage of certified forestland of any state in the U.S. The committee’s strategy for adding three million certified acres calls for an additional 2.5 million acres from large parcels (those over 5,000 acres in size), 100,000 acres of public lands, and 500,000 acres from smaller parcels. The main obstacle to certifying more small owners is economic: getting certified and staying certified is relatively expensive for the average woodlot owner, and there is no clear financial benefit since the market is not yet providing a premium to those whose land is certified. But Maine has an advantage because it has several ways a landowner’s harvests can be certified without individually certifying his or her land. It has a well-established Master Logger program and three green-certified forestry consulting companies, and harvests conducted by any of these loggers or foresters are considered certified by major customers. In addition, the Small Woodlot Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM) has a group certification through the ATF system.
Because of the large presence of the paper industry, there is another market force at play in Maine. Increasingly, major buyers of paper – magazines, retailers with catalogs, and sellers of office supplies – are insisting that wood used in manufacturing come from certified sustainably managed forests. They demand that claims of sustainability be certified through third-party auditing and have built strategic supply relationships with mills and owners of certified forestland.
No small part of their reasoning is that nobody wants to be the next company targeted by environmental watchdog groups such as Forest Ethics, which has developed an ad campaign condemning Victoria’s Secret, a hugely successful mail order business. The ads, headlined “Victoria’s Dirty Secret,” feature photos of clearcuts and a lingerie-clad model with a chainsaw. The ads read, “Insist that the company stop buying paper that comes from endangered forests, that it increase its use of recycled paper to 50%, and that it stop sending so many darn catalogs!”
Maine’s government, industry, and conservation community are recognizing the value of meeting the increasing demand for reliable sources of green-certified paper. The certification committee’s report shows that they have a clear understanding of the opportunity and the challenge.