Highlighted in the report are the efforts of 219 SFI programme participants in applying the SFI standard on more than 137 million acres of forestland in the US and Canada and on tens of millions of additional acres from which they purchase wood fibre.
Areas of progress include the fact that 94% of the wood fibre used by SFI participants was delivered by professional loggers who have completed comprehensive sustainable forestry training programmes.
Other highlights in the report are that 37 state, regional and provincial SFI implementation committees are now established.
And the goal of broadening sustainable forestry practices through procurement systems has resulted in 6,401 more loggers and foresters being trained in 2005, bringing the total to 97,174 trained since 1995.
During 2005, 1.2 million acres of SFI programme participant’s forests were reforested, either through planting or natural regeneration, as a direct policy of prompt reforestation to ensure long term productivity.
This continual improvement in standards and practices has seen a total investment of US$799m by SFI programme participants in sustainable forestry research since 1995. Since then the SFI programme has been resposnsible for planting more than 5.9 billion trees.
The progress report can be viewed online at www.aboutsfb.org.
