International Programs

Since the early 1970’s, the depletion of the world’s forests has been an increasingly popular issue among the environmental groups within the United States and Europe. Only recently have these movements shifted towards the Asian markets, creating the need for a uniform method of addressing sustainable forestry. One result from this movement has been the creation of forest products certification as one possible method for developing a sustainable forestry market throughout the world. Until recently however, forest certification programs have meet with little success in Asian markets, such as Japan, due to such factors as lack of adaptability to changes and differences within the Asian timber market as compared to western markets, financial support and viability of certification as it pertains to local investors and timber producers, as well as a lack of an internal governing body within the Asian markets to oversee the certification process.
Information for this thesis was gathered from a variety of sources such as the internet, forestry journals, and various publications from experts in the field of sustainable forestry and forest products certification. From this research, a number of conclusions can be made about the future of forest products certification in both western and eastern markets. Each country represented within the Asian timber market who wishes to begin the certification process must establish and internal governing body to manage the system. Certification must become more financially beneficial in the short run to local and private timber growers in order for certification system adapted to the western markets of the United States and Europe must be altered in order to coexist with the very different structure of the Asian markets in Japan and other countries.