Groups Challenge Timber Companies Under SFI Rules

In separate actions in December 2006, two environmental groups asked the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc. (SFI) to take member companies to task for their ecologically damaging logging practices. The Seattle Audubon Society charged that Weyerhaeuser Company has violated SFI standards by harming northern spotted owls in Washington. The Natural Resources Council of Maine charged that Plum Creek Timber Company, Inc. should lose its SFI certification for breaking forestry laws in Maine.

SFI, like the international nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), sets standards for sustainably harvested lumber, but SFI grew out of the trade group American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), and its certification process has long been seen by environmental groups as less robust than FSC’s (see