RA study shows benefits
A study recently published by the Rainforest Alliance documents several on-the-ground benefits of FSC forest management certification.
The study concerned forest operations certified through the SmartWood Program, established and run by the Rainforest Alliance. Among other findings, research among more than 200 certifed operations showed that on average, certified forestry operations designate as much as 16% of their total forest area as strict reserves, with plantations tending to designate larger strict reserve areas than other types of forest. The average area of High Conservation Value Forest designated by operations amounts to 22% of the total forest area. Publicly-owned forests tended to have a significantly larger area designated as HCVF than privately- or community/indigenous-owned operations. Also, the number of serious accidents among forest workers was significantly lower than in comparable forests, in those countries where comparable statistics existed.
Estimate: 2.7 billion USD in certified sales
119 operations reported on the dollar value of their total sales and the dollar value of their sales with an FSC claim on the sales and shipping documents.
Combined, these operations had US $1.1 billion in total sales and US $865 million in sales with an FSC claim. Based on these figures, the Rainforest Alliance estimates these values for all FSC/Rainforest Alliance Certified forestry operations to be US $3.5 billion and US $2.7 billion, respectively.
