Burlington residents demand end to timber industry greenwash

I have to tell you that I can see both sides from here… It may be idealistic, but in the time I’ve spent with the SFI people I’ve been convinced that they’re not bad people. Same as the rest of us they’re trying to promote sustainable use of forests. Now, that means something different to them than it does to the rest of us, but with something as variable as forest health I think we all have our differences of opinion, and some of us are just plain wrong.

I think that the way the opposition group, Forest Ethics is approaching this, is all kinds of wrong too, though. They don’t want to improve the certification, they want to destroy it. They don’t want to make it real, they want it to lose credibilty completely. A lot of their points I believe and know to be true, however I don’t know when in the history of the world negativity of this nature has ever fought negativity of the SFI nature and produced something positive. And right now I feel like the stakes are too high for this kind of dispute. We lose forestland every day.

I don’t care who SFI is, who their funding comes from, as long as they are a means to promote practices I feel good about with regards to forest management. Right now and in the past they haven’t done a very good job of it in a lot of ways, but I think if we talk to groups like this instead of yelling at them we can get something done… Or at least find out what they’re really made of.

I’m interested to hear from those of you who have interacted with SFI and FSC, their audits, their certified jobs and lands. What have you seen?

I don’t know anything about the VT questions but I do know that in Massachusetts we started a program where landowners enrolled in Chapter 61 (our current use use tax program) could become green certified. I did a few of the first plans done in the state and was quite proud of it at the time. Now a few years later I am less then impressed. Nothing happens differently in the field on those FSC properties then any other. The certification adds another layer of bureaucratic BS and takes up a bunch of time and energy. Farther more I have yet to sell a timber lot for more money because it was green certified. I think it is a feel good thing for those who can afford to feel good. If a client asks for it I’ll write the plan and sign them up, otherwise I don’t mention it.