SP673 Forest Certification for Family-Owned Forests - Who will certify and why?

The concept of forest certification has grown as a tool to foster sustainable forest management. It began on the global scale in the 1980s, and moved rapidly to the United States. Initially in the U.S., several forest product companies completed third-party certification, followed by many publicly owned forests. Some stakeholders are beginning to discuss the need to accelerate forest certification on family-owned forests. Family-owned forests are particularly important in the U.S. because they comprise the majority of the forest land and contribute the greater part of the nation’s annual timber removal. Yet little is known about who among this diverse and sizable group will adopt certification on their lands, and why.

In order to examine certification on family-owned forests, University of Tennessee Extension staff sent a survey to 1,050 landowners in three counties located in West Tennessee. Landowners with 40 or more acres of forest land were targeted for the study. The response rate was 51 percent. The results of the survey are summarized here.