PEFC-certified Christmas trees, where can you find them this year?

23 December 2016 News

It is nearly Christmas, so it is once again time for us to focus in on Christmas trees – PEFC-certified ones of course!

The PEFC-certified forests of Trentino in Northern Italy have produced the Christmas tree adorning St Peter’s Square this Christmas. 25 meters tall and 85 years old, the tree came from the sustainably managed forest of Val Campelle in the municipality of Scurelle, at the foot of Lagorai mountain range.

"We donated a tree to the Holy See back in 2007, and we are honored to be granted with this opportunity again,” said the mayor of Scurelle Fulvio Ropelato. “Scurelle is a small town of 1,800 people that manage 1,800 hectares of PEFC-certified forest.”

On the same day tree was felled, children from a local school planted 49 larch and spruce trees. This was a symbolic act to raise awareness among the younger generations to the active and sustainable management of forests in an area where many trees were felled last autumn due to a parasite.

"The choice of the Holy See is a great sign, consistent with their choices of recent years and faithful to the best way of celebrating the holiday season whilst also respecting our natural resources,” observed Antonio Brunori, Secretary General of PEFC Italy.

Heading north from Italy, all 60 of the Christmas trees at the traditional ‘Christmas tree forest’ of the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki, Finland, are PEFC-certified. Volunteers from schools, nurseries and communities decorated these trees with self-made ornaments. The forest is open daily for visitors until 6 January 2017 – if you are in Helsinki, make sure you go and take a look!

In London’s Trafalgar Square, the City of Oslo’s traditional gift of a Christmas tree to the UK is once again from a PEFC-certified forest just outside Oslo. This annual gift is the 70th in the series of trees donated by Oslo to London, symbolizing the deep and long-lasting friendship between the two nations. The tree was lit with energy-efficient tree lights on Thursday 1 December.

Earlier in December, Detlef Stys, the newly elected Chairman of the PEFC Germany regional working group in Hessen, handed over a six meter high Christmas tree to the President of the Hessian state parliament, Norbert Kartmann. The Nordmann fir tree from the Vordertaunus region comes from a PEFC-certified, sustainably managed forest, putting the members of parliament, employees and visitors of the Hessian parliament into the Christmas mood.