Benchmarking Industry’s Special Sites Program

Frederick J. Weyerhaeuser, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Will Price, Pinchot Institute for Conservation

Peter Stangel (Presenter only), National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

The American Forest & Paper Association’s (AF&PA) Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a comprehensive system of principles, guidelines and performance measures that integrates the perpetual growing and harvesting of trees with the protection of wildlife, plants, soil, air and water quality. In 1999, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation established a partnership with AF&PA to quantify or benchmark the impact of SFI Objective 6: Manage company lands of ecological, geological, or historic significance in a manner that accounts for their special qualities.  This is the first in a series of projects to benchmark the on-the-ground impacts of SFI to fish, wildlife, and the environment.  In January 2000 a survey was sent to 59 AF&PA member companies; 40 land-holding companies representing 84% of the AF&PA’s membership landbase responded.  Although 88% of respondents reported managing for Special Sites before the advent of SFI, the acreage under this program appears to have increased since the program’s onset in 1995. Only 41% of respondents reported that SFI has changed the way they manage Special Sites, but this reflects in part the fact that many companies already had well-developed programs prior to SFI.  Companies reporting a change due to SFI listed formalizing policies, catalyzing company-wide protocols for designation and management, and standardization across regions of Special Sites as SRI-derived benefits.  In some cases, SFI provided field personnel with a better sense for how particular sites should be identified, managed, and enrolled in Special Sites programs. Despite ambiguities, this project provides an important analysis of the Special Sites program and helps set the stage for quantifying the on-the-ground impacts of SFI.

Workshop VI: Monitoring Forest Management

Sustaining
Southern
Forests

a conference sponsored by the Southern Forest Resource Assessment