First published in 1995, The Forest Certification Handbook has become the landmark book concerning all aspects of forest and wood product certification from policy to business to in-the-field technical issues. Yet since first publication an enormous amount has happened in the field.
Forest certification is widely seen as an important component of strategies for conserving the world"s forests. During the 1990s concern about the loss of biodiversity in logged forests was a key driver behind the emergence of forest certification. It was thought that by adhering to strict standards, production forests could help protecting biodiversity. Forest certification was introduced more than 15 years ago and since then more than 300 million hectares of forests have been certified under a variety of schemes. But does it work?
