Forest Certification
The Bancroft Minden Forest Company received FSC® certification of its forest management on November 21, 2012 by the Soil Association Certification Ltd. (an FSC accredited certification body since 1996).
Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) is an international certification and labeling system dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. Under the FSC certification system forests are evaluated to meet FSC’s strict environmental and social standards. Forest products harvested from certified forests are tracked all the way to the consumer through the FSC Chain of Custody system. FSC-certified wood, paper and other forest products are then sold by certified companies in the marketplace and can be recognized by the FSC logo.
To learn more about FSC certification, visit the FSC Canada website.
To maintain our certification, the Bancroft Minden Forest Company undergoes annual surveillance audits, as well as rigorous re-certification audits every 5 years. All findings are disclosed to the public through audit reports which can be found here: FSC Public Search.
For FSC certification, forest managers are required to identify any High Conservation Values (HCVs) that occur within their individual forest management units, to manage them in order to maintain or enhance the values identified; this is known as a High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) assessment. High Conservation Value Forests are those that possess one or more of the following attributes:
High Conservation Value Forests
- Forest areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant: concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g. endemism, endangered species, refugia); and/or large landscape-level forests, contained within, or containing the management unit, where viable populations of most if not all naturally occurring species exist in natural patterns of distribution and abundance
- Forest areas that are in or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems
- Forest areas that provide basic services of nature in critical situations (e.g. watershed protection, erosion control)
- Forest areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g. subsistence, health) and/or critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of cultural, ecological, economic or religious significance identified in cooperation with such local communities)
High Conservation Value Species
Using the National Boreal HCVF Framework for Canada, several high conservation values (HCV) were identified in the Bancroft Minden Forest. BMFC is committed to maintaining or enhancing these values by implementing management practices that protect waterways and wildlife habitat, conserve regions of high biodiversity and minimize the impact of harvesting operations.
