[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 181 (Wednesday, September 17, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 53820-53823]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-21611]
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Forest Service
Forest Certification and Its Implications for America's National
Forests
AGENCY: Forest Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice; request for comment.
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SUMMARY: The USDA, Forest Service is seeking comments on forest
certification and its implications for America's national forests. This
Federal Register notice is to serve as a formal public solicitation of
views on the question of National Forest System certification and its
implications, if national forest lands were to become certified under
one or both of the two major certification systems being used in the
United States. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages 193 million
acres, or approximately eight percent of the nation's land, believes
that it is important to better understand the implications of third-
party certification of National Forest System (NFS) lands and, in 2005,
began exploring independent, third party certification as a potential
option. To this end, the Forest Service initiated the National Forest
Certification Study, which resulted in the report, ``National Forest
Certification Study: An Evaluation of the Application of Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)
Standards on Five National Forests.'' This report documents the study
in which third-party auditors evaluated current forest management
practices on five national forest units using the existing
certification standards of two certification programs, Sustainable
Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
Recognizing that the Forest Service has not decided whether it will
seek certification, public outreach and discussion is requested to
obtain public and stakeholder views on the National Forest
Certification Study and its associated report, as well as the potential
implications of NFS certification in general before determining how to
proceed.
In addition to comments on the National Forest Certification Study,
the Forest Service is particularly interested in public views on the
following questions:
1. What are your general views on the implications of independent,
third party certification of NFS lands?
2. Would certification improve the management of national forests?
3. Could certification make it more difficult to achieve national
forest management goals?
4. What questions would certification be able to answer, and what
needs would it be able to meet, on national forest lands?
5. Are there key questions or needs that certification would be
unable or poorly suited to address?
6. Would independent, third party certification be an appropriate
or effective tool, given the unique role of national forests? Or,
because of that unique role, would certification be particularly
inappropriate or ineffective?
Detailed information about the NFS Certification Study is available
on the following Web site: http://www.fs.fed.us/projects/forestcertification/index.shtml.
DATES: Comments must be received, in writing, on or before November 17,
2008. Comments received after that date will be considered to the
extent praticable.
ADDRESSES: Comments concerning this notice should be addressed to Doug
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MacCleery, USDA Forest Service (FM), 201 14th St. SW., Mailstop: 1103,
Washington, DC 20024. Comments may also be sent via e-mail to
[email protected], or via facsimile to (202) 205-1045.
All comments, including names and addresses when provided, are
placed in the record and are available for public inspection and
copying. The public may inspect comments received at the above address.
Visitors are encouraged to call ahead to (202) 205-1745 to facilitate
entry to the building.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Doug MacCleery, Forest Management,
(202) 205-1745, [email protected]. Additional information concerning
Forest Service certification may be obtained on the Internet at http://www.fs.fed.us/projects/forestcertification/index.shtml.
Individuals who use telecommunication devices for the deaf (TDD)
may call the Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339
between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, Monday through
Friday.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Independent, third-party certification is
one of the most significant developments in the field of forest
management in the last two decades. Its use has expanded dramatically
as the public and consumers have increased their interest in practical
ways to ensure that good management practices are being applied to
forests both domestically and around the world. Certified area has
expanded to an estimated 7% of forests globally. In the U.S., the area
of forests certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and
the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has increased from virtually none
in 1998 to over 60 million acres today. About 14 million acres of
state-owned lands have been certified, in most cases to both FSC and
SFI standards.
In the United States, certification was first applied to private
lands. Due to the perceived benefits of the process, public lands are
now becoming involved as well. Eight state forest systems in the U.S.
are now certified. Some State forestry officials believe that
certification has served to improve the quality of forestry management
and to affirm their commitment to accepted standards of good forest
management. Many believe that the certification process has been more
about public accountability than providing certified wood to the
marketplace.
Certifying National Forest System lands has been debated for
several years. It is a sensitive and complex issue, perhaps more so for
the NFS than any other type of ownership in the U.S. National Forest
System planning is exceedingly complex and management practices and
objectives are closely scrutinized by both the public and U.S. Courts.
The Forest Service is currently assessing the value and implications of
certification for the NFS.
National Forest Certification Study
In 2005, in order to evaluate the implications of national forest
certification, the U.S. Forest Service initiated a formal study of the
issue. Independent third-party certification indicates certification to
standards derived by a group external to the organization being
audited. Under this study, independent third-party auditors evaluated
current forest management practices on five national forest units using
the existing certification standards of two certification programs,
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC). FSC certification standards and related information can be
viewed at: http://www.fscus.org. The SFI Web site is at: http://www.sfiprogram.org.
On October 22, 2007, ``National Forest Certification Study: An
Evaluation of the Application of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Standards on Five National
Forests'' was released. This report, produced by the Pinchot Institute
for Conservation (PIC), summarizes and discusses the five third-party
evaluations and captures lessons learned through a review of
participant experiences.
The study was designed to:
1. Evaluate the potential implications of third-party certification
of national forests and grasslands,
2. Provide a better understanding of how national forest management
practices align with FSC and SFI standards, and
3. Study the lessons learned as a basis for determining what policy
and management direction may be needed in the event forest
certification were pursued in the future.
Actual certification by FSC or SFI was outside the scope of these
evaluations and was not a possible outcome on any of the study units.
Nor did the FSC or SFI participate directly in the study. However, this
study provided the Forest Service with a valuable opportunity to
examine the consistency of current national forest resource management
activities with the requirements of the two major forest certification
programs now operating in the U.S. This was the first time national
forest management had been evaluated with reference to the standards of
such certification programs.
Participating Units
The National Forest System (NFS) management units evaluated were
the:
Allegheny National Forest (ANF) in Pennsylvania.
Lakeview Federal Stewardship Unit (LFSU) on the Fremont-
Winema National Forest in Oregon.
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (CNNF) in Wisconsin.
Mt. Hood National Forest (MHNF) in Oregon.
National Forests in Florida (NFF).
Role of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation
The Pinchot Institute for Conservation (PIC), which carried out
this study, is an independent nonprofit research and education
organization dedicated to investigating new approaches to forest
conservation and has carried out certification tests in a variety of
settings. The Institute investigated the implications of certification
on state-owned, private, tribal, and university forest lands. For this
project the Institute:
Worked to secure funding for the certification
evaluations.
Contracted with accredited, third-party auditors.
Provided coordination between the Forest Service and
auditors.
Reviewed and evaluated the auditors' reports.
Interviewed those involved in the certification
evaluations to assess their views as to potential benefits and
detriments/costs of the process.
Prepared the study findings, results, and a lessons
learned report.
Study Scope and Conduct
The national forest certification evaluations were designed to
closely approximate the process that a national forest would undergo
were it actually seeking certification. The audit firms were required
to be fully accredited to carry out FSC and SFI certification audits
and to use the same approach they would for an actual certification
assessment. The study unit national forests addressed FSC and SFI
requirements as set forth in standards applicable to private, State-
owned and Department of Defense and Department of Energy (DOD-DOE)
lands in the U.S.
All certification evaluations were the functional equivalents of
major, broad-based management reviews of all aspects of national forest
management. The FSC and SFI evaluation reports of the five national
forests read like other certification assessment reports. They
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include a summary of the management setting, stakeholder feedback,
findings of performance gaps or non-conformances (major and minor), and
issuance of Corrective Action Requests.
Performance Against FSC and SFI Standards Used in the Study
Auditors found many situations where practices on the units
evaluated demonstrated good overall conformance with most of the FSC
and SFI standards currently being applied to private and State-owned
and DOD-DOE lands in the U.S.
Examples included:
Forest planning and operations.
Inpact assessments.
Stakeholder consultation.
Coordination with First Nations.
Extent of reserves.
Protection of threatened and endangered species.
Control of invasives and exotics.
The auditors did cite a number of areas where the Forest Service is
not meeting the FSC or SFI certification standards used in the study.
Performance gaps on one or more study units included:
Forest health issues arising from the backlog of
management activities.
A backlog of road maintenance and decommissioning.
Inadequate monitoring of non-timber forest products.
Issues with old-growth protection and management on two
study national forests.
Inadequate attention to logger safety.
Operation under outdated management plans.
Inadequate attention to off highway management issues and
their enviornmental effects.
Difficulty in dealing with oil and gas leases not
controlled by the Federal Government on one study unit (split estate).
Some performance gaps are minor and do not preclude certification
if they can be remedied within a given time period after a certificate
is issued. Other gaps are major and would preclude FSC or SFI
certification until mechanisms are put into place to address them.
Auditors also issue observations or note opportunities for improvement
that suggest things that may improve compliance with standards.
Feedback From Forest Service Staff Involved in the Study
The geographic representation of the study on unit national forests
provided an opportunity to test certification in different NFS
settings. Each participating forest faces similar agencywide challenges
(limited resources and overextended staff, appeals and litigation) and
yet is faced with its own ecological and socioeconomic issues.
Most of the NFS study coordinators (the Forest Service point person
for the study on each forest) felt that the certification programs
impose requirements that are relevant to determining whether a forest
is meeting its management objectives and improving their management
practices over time. Forest staff indicated that certification can be a
valuable tool if carried out in an effective manner that does not
impose an additional, unsupported burden on staff and resources.
Staff found the evaluations to be a broad-based and comprehensive
review--often more so than the Forest Service's own targeted, internal
audits, of the many integrated management activities occurring on the
forest. To this end, they were impressed with the wide range of issues
addressed by the evaluations.
Coordinators also reported that the FSC and SFI evaluations
provided positive, independent reinforcement of their management
activities while identifying those areas where improvements are needed.
In many cases, these identified improvements were not unfamiliar to
forest staff but would not be addressed unless additional funding and/
or staff resources were available. Participating staff also recognized
the value of third parties communicating publicly on the successes and
difficulties of national forest management, especially difficulties
arising from factors they feel are ``beyond their control.'' In this
context, NFS study coordinators identified Corrective Action Requests
that they felt would be difficult or impossible to fix, and would
likely need to be addressed by the Forest Service Washington Office.
Some Lessons Learned in the Study
The following is a summary of some of the lessons learned in the
study.
Lessons Pertinent to Individual National Forests
Management issues, challenges, and certification
assessment results will vary from unit to unit.
The certification assessments were useful feedback
mechanisms for national forest personnel regarding their management of
the forest, and by providing a more comprehensive and integrative
review than normal internal audits, they complemented existing
management systems. Normally, a certification assessment would also
help determine whether a forest management unit is meeting its own
management objectives, and would emphasize improving management
practices over time.
The assessments provided opportunities beyond existing
legal and administrative requirements for interest groups and
stakeholders to provide input regarding national forest management.
Outdated land and resource management plans may prevent
some forests from meeting the requirements set forth in certification
standards, which emphasizes a potentially broader need for updating
national forest management systems.
The lack in some cases of integrated landscape planning
involving adjacent lands and landowners raised the issue of the unique
role of national forests within the broader landscape, as well as
nationwide, and how certification would take account of this role.
Lessons Pertinent to the National Forest System
Backlogs in road maintenance, delays in silvicultural
treatments, and other problems in the implementation of approved forest
plans were often cited as indicators of larger budgeting and staffing
issues outside the control of individual national forests (in the hands
of Congress or the Administration).
National forest staff time required to participate in
certification assessment and reporting procedures varied considerably
from unit to unit but raised issues of `unsupported' budgetary demands
(not specifically covered by existing funding levels).
The fact that ownership and control of sub-surface mineral
rights may lie in the hands of external parties raised broader
questions about how the Forest Service would deal with such issues if
they impact forest management and the ability of a forest unit to meet
certification standards.
Inconsistencies between certification standards and
existing National Forest System management, planning and policy
commitments (Northwest Forest Plan, the definition of Native American
organizations as sovereign entities, chemical use), raise broader
questions about the relationship between private certification
organizations and federal land management systems.
Requirements in the SFI and FSC standards that the Forest
Service make formal `commitments' to the certification programs raise
questions about how the agency could do this organizationally and
legally.
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Next Steps
Recognizing that the Forest Service has not decided whether it will
seek certification, the following are relevant considerations:
The FSC Federal Lands Policy establishes three criteria to be met
before any new Federal land system such as the NFS could seek
certification. In summary, the criteria are a willing landowner (the
Forest Service), a determination that public consensus exists regarding
management of the NFS, and the development of a set of standards
specific to each category of Federal forestland (Forest Service, Bureau
of Land Management, etc.). Because the Forest Service has not
determined whether it will seek certification, FSC has not yet
determined whether, how or when they will address these criteria for
the Forest Service.
SFI has indicated that it would welcome NFS participation in SFI
certification. A landowner seeking SFI certification must formally
commit to reporting and management measures specific to the SFI
Program. How and whether the Forest Service could make these
commitments would also need to be determined.
A public outreach effort is now underway to obtain public and
stakeholder views on the outcomes of the National Forest Certification
Study and the potential implications of NFS certification in general.
Once this effort is completed, the Forest Service will evaluate its
options and determine how to proceed.
Dated: September 10, 2008.
Charles L. Myers,
Associate Deputy Chief, NFS.
[FR Doc. E8-21611 Filed 9-16-08; 8:45 am]
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