Study On The Certification Schemes For Sustainable Forest Management And Development Of Forest Certification In China

Forest certification is an effective mechanism to address international forest issues, improve sustainable forest management and promote market access of forest products. At present, China's forestry is facing the historical responsibilities of improving environment, protecting resources and strengthening development. It has become an important task for the forest sector to achieve sustainable forest management, which is of great significance in achieving the promising goal of building up a harmonious society. Forest certification in China will help to bring forest management in China onto the sustainable cycle and benefit China's forestry development in leaps and bounds.This paper introduce in details the certification schemes of sustainable forest management, including definition, main components, purposes, costs, benefits, characteristics, procedures and impacts, etc. It elaborates and compares in depth the existing internationally accepted certification schemes, such as FSC, ISO, PEFC, CSA, SFI, MTCC, and discusses the latest progress of certification both nationally and internationally as well as its future perspectives.This paper also gives a detailed analysis on the impact of certification in China, the roles and significance of forest certification on forestry development in China, as well as the current opportunities and challenges of carrying out certification, thus raises the author's views and recommendations on how to develop forest certification in China.Although forest certification started rather late in China, it has made significant progress, and there are already cases of both forest management certification and chain-of-custody certification. The Chinese government has attached importance on forest certification, and international communities are also strongly promoting the development of certification in China, therefore, we believe forest certification will be progressed quickly. Certainly, forest certification is a very complicated issue, and there is still a long way to achieve forest certification globally.