SFI Publication Marks Decade of Conservation Impact Success

Formally announced at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in September 2016, the SFI Conservation Impact Project actually consists of numerous smaller projects generated by partnerships within the academics, conservationists, researchers, and SFI-certified organizations. It advances understanding of the issues related to climate change, biodiversity, and water on lands influenced by the SFI Forest Management Standard and the SFI Fiber Sourcing Standard. The SFI Conservation Impact Project also plays a key role in helping conservationists understand the values associated with sustainable forest management.

“Identifying positive conservation outcomes, key learnings, and opportunities for improvement on SFI certified lands is a critical component of the SFI standards. SFI’s Conservation Impact: A Decade of Success is a testament to the dedication and collaboration we see across the SFI network when it comes to advancing forest science and sustainable solutions,” says Kathy Abusow, CEO and President of SFI.

SFI is the only forestry standard that requires certified organizations to support forest and conservation research. In total, SFI-certified organizations invest over $60 million per year in forest and conservation research and have invested over $1.8 billion cumulatively since 1995. This research, driven in part by requirements in the SFI standard, generates robust results with lasting benefits for the forest and conservation sector. SFI’s Conservation Impact work supports research over and above these investments by SFI-certified organizations.

SFI’s Conservation Impact work supports research that tests, evaluates, and validates the value and outcomes resulting from SFI Forest Management and Fiber Sourcing certification. Since Conservation Impact research is generated by SFI rather than SFI-certified organizations, Conservation Impact investments of SFI are above and beyond the $60 million annual investments noted previously.

Innovative conservation research is critical to ensuring continued improvement in sustainable forestry. With over 350 million acres (140 million hectares) certified to the SFI 2022 Forest Management Standard in North America, and tens of millions more positively influenced by the SFI 2022 Fiber Sourcing Standard, SFI and SFI-certified organizations have the scale and reach to generate meaningful results which advance sustainability in North America.

Readers of SFI’s Conservation Impact: A Decade of Success will learn about 17 different conservation research projects that SFI has supported and participated in with numerous partners across its three main focus areas: climate change, biodiversity, and water quality and quantity.

Three Research Project Highlights

Climate Change: SFI collaborated with American Forests to develop an approach to include soils in forest carbon calculations because soils can account for a sizeable, at times unconsidered, amount of carbon storage. This allows for better understanding of whole-ecosystem carbon dynamics. One Conservation Impact study area showed that, when the cumulative harvest—including long-lived wood products—was added to the greenhouse gas balance, SFI-certified forests acted as carbon sinks.

Biodiversity: SFI collaborated with the American Bird Conservancy to examine the needs of a wide variety of bird species in decline, and their presence on select SFI-certified pilot areas, to help build understanding of broader ecosystem health and sustainable forest management. Many of the focal species were more abundant within SFI certified forests, including Prairie Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and Wood Thrush (learn more at American Bird Conservancy).

Water Quality and Quantity: SFI collaborated with the Nature Conservancy of Canada to develop two management decision support tools to help plan activities around waterways to ensure protection of water quality and quantity. The Active River Area project helps identify riparian areas and freshwater conservation and restoration strategies and actions (learn more at Nature Conservancy Canada). Such management decision tools matter because of the reach and scale of water resources flowing from SFI-certified forestlands. A collaborative project of SFI and the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement determined that waterways on SFI-certified forestlands are collectively long enough to reach around the world 50 times, underscoring the importance of these forests to water supplies throughout North America (learn more at Water Benefits).

Click here to download SFI's Conservation Impact: A Decade of Success.

For more information about the PA SFI Implementation Committee, visit the SFI website or call 888-734-9366.

Written by Chuck Coup, PA SFI Implementation Committee Program Manager