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 46 Humboldt Street, Willits, California 95490 |
ISF is the Western Regional headquarters for SmartWood, offering landowner and resource manager certifications, as well as market assistance and forest product business chain-of-custody certifications.
ISF has conducted rigorous land management certifications on many thousands of acres in northern California.
The Benefits of Certification
The Certification Process
SmartWood Makes Good Business Sense
ISF/SmartWood Certification
SmartWood Labeling
- Conserves the environment and the timber resource by reducing the impact of logging.
- Promotes good forest management that ensures the long-term survival of the forest, both as a habitat and as a timber resource.
- Provides stable long-term economic and social benefits to local communities.
- Develop a formal plan to ensure good, long-term forest management;
- Minimize the damage they do to remaining forests during harvesting;
- Protect local biodiversity and watersheds;
- Prevent over-cutting of popular timber species;
- Respect the rights of local communities and workers;
- Plant trees on degraded or cleared land, with an emphasis on native species and ecosystem restoration.
The SmartWood program is growing nationally and internationally, enabling local and regional associations to tap into the ground floor of new markets, thereby increasing the capacity for local stakeholders to reap the benefits to the forest ecology and community economy.
SmartWood, the first and most extensive certification program in the world, provides objective evaluation of forest management practices, forest products, timber sources, and companies. Only those that meet strict environmental standards receive SmartWood certification. This includes companies that sell used certified wood.
ISF has developed consistent evaluation protocols for the certification process: responding to landowner inquiries, judging compliance, evaluating properties according to specific standards, and providing a reliable scoring mechanism.
SmartWood operates in all forest types throughout the SmartWood Network in South, Central, and North America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific.
ISF/SmartWood certification requires that landowners adhere to a strict set of criteria that include the following:
SmartWood Makes Good Business Sense
SmartWood-certification requires sustainable forest management that promotes the security of the forest and provides long-term economic benefits for the certified forest manager and related wood-buying manufacturers. SmartWood-certified products are increasingly attractive to a growing number of conscious consumers who are concerned with the environmental consequences of their purchases.
ISF/SmartWood Certification in the Western Region of the United States
Because the standards are nearly identical, ISF has integrated its own PCEFP (Pacific Ecological Certified Forest Products) into SmartWood, and now coordinates SmartWood certification in the Western Region of the U.S. ISF issues SmartWood certification to property owners, forest managers, who can prove that they maintain sustainable forests, control negative effects such as soil erosion, and return benefits of their business to local residents.
Wood processors and retail businesses that deal with certified wood can receive certification as well. Any individual or business with SmartWood certification must comply with SmartWood "chain-of-custody" requirements. ISF also trains qualified foresters in SmartWood certification practices.
SmartWood is accredited for the certification of natural forest management by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the internationally recognized monitoring organization for forest product certification. SmartWood is a registered certification mark of the Rainforest Alliance.
The SmartWood label guarantees that wood or particular wood products come from forests that adhere to the strictest standards of sustainable forestry. All wood products from SmartWood certified properties and businesses may carry the SmartWood label.