C-PAC Joins Two Sides

For decades, only trees in forests came within the scope of forest certification. However, trees also grow outside forests, in hedgerows, scattered on farms, along streets in urban areas… With the approval of our revised Sustainable Forest Management benchmark standard last year, this is set to change. This was the message the PEFC team took to the World Agroforestry Congress, held last month in Montpellier, France. The inclusion of Trees outside Forests (TOF) makes PEFC certification accessible for the first time to millions of farmers who own or manage trees on agricultural or settlement land. This will increase income generation opportunities for rural populations and in parallel support the delivery of a range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Click Read More below for additional information.

AF&PA recently released our 2016 Sustainability Report, which documents the industry’s progress in working toward achieving each of the goals in our Better Practices, Better Planet 2020 sustainability initiative. Among the goals showing progress in the report is the paper recovery rate. In 2011, AF&PA set a goal to exceed 70 percent paper recovery for recycling by 2020. In May, AF&PA announced a record paper recovery rate of 66.8 percent in 2015. That is up from 65.4 percent in 2014 and nearly double the paper recovery rate in 1990,when the industry set its first paper recovery goal. The recovery of paper and paper-based packaging for recycling has fostered a dynamic marketplace that allows recovered paper to find its highest-value end use as feedstock to manufacture new products. And that is very important to the industry. click Read More below for the rest of the story

The Vietnamese government has formulated a Forestry Development Strategy to help achieve this goal. This includes the target to establish, manage, protect and sustainably use 16.2 million hectares of forestland by 2020, and to certify at least 3 million hectares by 2030. “Sustainable forest management is a key focus of the Vietnamese government. We are prioritizing sustainable forest management in accordance with international practices, in order to increase the certified forest area by 2030,” Vice Minister Ha Cong Tuan confirmed. The newly established office will coordinate forest certification activities in Vietnam and manage the national forest certification system, including its application to PEFC for endorsement. Click Read More below for additional information.