Government officials have held discussions with four NGOs about the reassessment of the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Malaysian Timber Certification Council scheme.
Officers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) met representatives from Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, and Forests and the EU Resource Network on July 26.
Timber Trade Federation chief executive John White told TTJ: “As a result Defra will confirm its decision in two weeks, but expect a positive outcome as far as acceptance of PEFC and SFI is concerned.”
Mr White said PEFC was likely to be subject to further monitoring to ensure the revisions to its international standards were rolled out to all its national members’ schemes.
Both SFI and PEFC recently changed their regulations after failing to meet the Central Point of Expertise on Timber’s definition of sustainable forest management.
