New Zealand Forest Certification Association (NZFCA) has joined PEFC International as its newest member.
“We are delighted to be accepted into membership of PEFC and to represent PEFC in New Zealand,” says Dr Andrew McEwen, chair of NZFCA.
“We are pleased for New Zealand to join PEFC, and its commitment to support sustainable forest management,” said Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC International. “We appreciate the tremendous efforts of stakeholders in New Zealand in establishing NZFCA, and we are looking forward to a long and fruitful collaboration advancing responsible forestry and trade in forest products.”
Many of the countries that purchase New Zealand forest products (or compete with New Zealand exports) are already PEFC members, including China, Japan, Indonesia, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Russia, and the USA. Other major markets such as India are also looking at joining.
“It makes sense for New Zealand forest growers to be in a position to supply PEFC certified forest products to all these markets,” says Dr McEwen.
NZFCA hopes to have a PEFC endorsed certification system based on the New Zealand Standard for Sustainable Forest Management (NZS AS 4708:2014) in place later this year. The New Zealand Standard is an adoption of the Australian Forestry Standard (AS 4708:2013) which is the basis for the PEFC endorsed Australian Forest Certification system. NZFCA is working closely with Australian Forestry Standard Ltd. (AFS), in order to benefit from the close relationships between the two countries with many forest owners, managers and processors operating in both.
