October 1, 2008
Minnesota Committee Wins National Sustainable Forestry Initiative Award
MINNESOTA COMMITTEE WINS NATIONAL
SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE® ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
An outstanding year of community service – including a project to build a Habitat for Humanity home with products from well-managed forests – has won the Duluth-based Minnesota Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI) Implementation Committee the 10thth annual SFI Implementation Committee achievement award. The award was presented Sept. 25 at SFI’s annual conference in Minneapolis.
This is the third time the Minnesota team has won the annual achievement award – in 1999 it won the first award ever presented, and it also won in 2004.
In 2008, the committee and the North St. Louis County Habitat for Humanity joined together to build a home in Hibbing in northern Minnesota using volunteer labor and wood products from SFI member companies.
“This has been an amazing partnership, with benefits for the community and the environment,” said Tim O’Hara, coordinator of the Minnesota SFI implementation committee. “The Minnesota SFI Implementation Committee was pleased to create such a valuable partnership with Habitat for Humanity to bring this home to fruition.”
The success of the project encouraged the Maine SFI Implementation Committee to work with its local Habitat for Humanity and Bank of America to build a home in Portland, Maine, which will be certified to the National Association of Home Builders green building standard.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty congratulated the Minnesota committee: “Minnesotans take great pride in our vast forests and we are committed to responsible stewardship. The Minnesota SFI Implementation Committee is helping us achieve this goal by working with communities and local organizations across the state.”
“With more than six million acres certified to the SFI Standard in Minnesota, it is not a surprise our state has such an active team and is able to provide leadership, helping forest landowners practice responsible forestry,” said Terry Worthman, chair of the implementation committee.
The committee’s other recent activities have included:
. training 1,245 loggers in 2007 in cooperation with the Minnesota Logger Education Program;
. providing information for family forest landowners, including one on how to identify and control invasive species on forestlands;
. honoring a logger of the year, based on criteria that recognize outstanding efforts; and
. working with state officials to track inconsistent forestry practices.
“SFI Implementation Committees are the heart of our program, bringing together our passion for responsible forest management and strong communities,” SFI Inc. President and CEO Kathy Abusow said in presenting the award. “The Minnesota team’s solid work through the year and its unique partnership with Habitat for Humanity demonstrate our commitment to environmental and social values.”
Independent, non-profit SFI Inc. is internationally recognized, and is one of the largest forest certification programs in the world. Its forest standard is based on principles and measures promoting sustainability, including measures to protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk and forests with exceptional conservation value.
Its 37 SFI Implementation Committees, working at state, provincial or regional levels across the United States and Canada, extend the benefits of the SFI program beyond SFI-certified lands.
Committee members support community outreach, promote best management practices and deliver training programs for loggers and forest professionals.
The Minnesota SFI Implementation Committee includes representatives from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, forest companies, the University of Minnesota, family forest owners, the Minnesota Logger Education Program, Minnesota Timber Producers Association, the Ruffed Grouse Society and SFI-certified county land departments.
SFI Inc. is a 501c(3) non-profit charitable organization, and is solely responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program (www.sfiprogram.org), that is internationally recognized and among the largest in the world. It is one of the fastest growing forest certification programs with 150 million acres (60 million hectares) of SFI-certified forests across North America. The SFI Standard also includes unique fiber sourcing requirements that promote responsible forest management on all suppliers’ lands and a chain-of-custody certification, which can communicate to buyers how much certified fiber is in a specific product.
The SFI forest standard is endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, a global umbrella organization that has strict requirements for endorsement. SFI Inc. is governed by a three-chamber board of directors representing environmental, social and economic sectors equally.
For additional information, contact: Tim O’Hara, Minnesota SFI coordinator, in Duluth at 218/722-5013.
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