Skip Maine state header navigation

Agencies | Online Services | Help

Skip First Level Navigation | Skip All Navigation

Home > Forest Certification > Get Certified >Forest certification for Small Ownerships in Maine

Forest certification for Small Ownerships in Maine

Forest certification for small ownership usually involves

  1. a landowner (or other entity) who requests that lands they own or manage be “certified”
  2. an established certification system with defined criteria or standards for forest management (often accredited by a national or international organization), and
  3. an independent auditor who is hired by the requesting landowner/organization to compare the actual forest management practices , through documentation and on the ground, with the system’s requirements. Forest areas that have been found to have been managed to meet a particular standard are said to be “certified” under that system.

Most (but not all) certifications up to now have been conducted on large private or public forest ownerships.  Opportunities for certification of smaller ownerships under a variety of systems are available, however, and new certification systems are under development.

The primary benefits of certification for the landowner may include:
  1. a successful certification audit provides independent assurance to a landowner that their land is being managed well
  2. the certification process often reveals ways to improve the overall forest management (these may or may not affect whether the land “passes” the audit)
  3. forest products – especially sawlogs or pulpwood) from land or operations which are certified are often be sold to buyers who are interested in certified wood. Prices have not been shown to be substantially different for certified wood, but it appears that certified wood is sometimes preferred by some buyers.-
Landowner options:

Landowners can take one of several routes to become certified - these involve ensuring that forest management planning/activities meet the standards of a particular certification system:

  1. Individual Property Certification: Landowners can have their land assessed directly under a particular certification system. This is usually prohibitively expensive for small landowners, since they bear all the costs directly for hiring an independent auditor and having a certified management program.
  2. Group Certification: Landowners can certify their land by joining a group of landowners that is already certified. Existing “certified groups” may include anywhere from a handful of landowners to several hundred. Landowners can join several types of groups:
    1. Certified Resource Manager: Landowners can hire a particular consulting forester or firm whose forest management approach has been independently certified; their certification applies to all of their clients who choose to enter the certified group;
    2. Certified Group Manager: Landowners can join an organization (often a nonprofit, trust, or community organization) which has an independently audited forest management program, and which acts as “group manager” to provide services and conducts ongoing reviews. The group sets standards and process to assure participating landowners that their lands meet the certification standard.
      Periodic re-certification audits of such “group” schemes usually only involve a sample of the participating lands, though all participants are considered certified.
  3. Certified Harvesting: Landowners who intend to harvest wood can hire a certified wood harvester or enter a harvest verification program to certify a particular harvest operation. Standard harvest planning and implementation under such systems have been certified by a third-party process. Under this approach harvested wood may be marketed as “certified”, though the land itself may not considered to be certified.

Certification by any of these routes has requirements which often involve costs to forest landowners:

  1. Maintaining a high level of management, such as
    1. having comprehensive forest management plans prepared and regularly updated
    2. hiring a forester to plan and/or supervise forest harvesting or other projects

     

    However these requirements/costs may be comparable to any long-term forest management program.

  2. Membership in a group and adherence to its management approach. This can sometimes include fees which some, though not all, certified groups charge. Fees may be annual or periodic.
  3. A certification audit of a single parcel involves considerable requirements; most small landowners will not take this approach since it is generally the most costly.

Costs may be borne directly or indirectly by the landowner, and can range from quite small to relatively costly.

Certification is voluntary – it is not a set of laws or rules about how lands must be managed. However, most certification systems include a requirement that applicable land use laws are being followed.

Once enrolled in a certification scheme, landowners generally are not severely restricted in how they manage their lands, as long as sustainable forestry practices are used, important natural resources are conserved, and adequate documentation is maintained. Documentation is generally a primary responsibility of the group entity.

Forest certification is similar to the “certification” of various products under the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, or based on certain energy efficiency standards. It basically is a way of verifying independently that certain claims about a product are true. Another example is the certification of foods that are grown organically. In forest certification, the claim that forests are well-managed or sustainably managed is the claim which is being independently verified.

For more information about forest management in Maine, how to certify your land, finding certified foresters and/or certified groups, and other options for land management, please contact Maine Forest Service at 1.800.367.0223 (in state only), or 207.287.2791, or email forestcertification@maine.gov.