Forest owners in Argentina can now benefit from international recognition

5 August 2014 PEFC system news

“The endorsement of our system by PEFC is excellent news, as our forest owners will now be able to demonstrate that they manage their forests in a sustainable way, gaining important recognition and access to the global marketplace,” said Mr. Vassallo, President of CERFOAR, the PEFC member for Argentina.

“Nearly all our forests are privately owned, and thanks to PEFC’s bottom-up approach to standard setting, we were able to ensure that all the stakeholders were involved in the development of our national system - while at the same time meeting globally accepted international requirements,” continued Mr. Vassallo.

With less than 1% of Argentina’s 28 million hectares of natural forest certified, the Argentine Forest Certification System was developed by a voluntary initiative of national stakeholders to respond to the needs of those throughout the forest sector in Argentina. Given the high level of private ownership in the country, it was vital that the new national system was developed in a multi-stakeholder process with participation of representatives from every link in the value chain of forest-based products and other interested parties making up the entire forest sector.

The Argentine Forest Certification System achieved endorsement after demonstrating compliance with PEFC’s globally recognized Sustainability Benchmarks, a suite of requirements for covering a range of issues including standards development, sustainable forest management, Chain of Custody certification as well as certification and accreditation requirements.

With this endorsement, Argentina becomes the fourth Latin American country featuring a PEFC-endorsed national forest certification system. The national forest certification systems in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay already benefit from PEFC endorsement. Almost 70% of all forests in South America (and 70% of all forests in the Americas as a whole) can now benefit from PEFC certification.