The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program is a comprehensive system of principles, objectives and performance measures developed by professional foresters, conservationists and scientists, among others that combines the perpetual growing and harvesting of trees with the long-term protection of wildlife, plants, soil and water quality. The SFI Standard spells out the requirements of compliance with the program. The SFIS is based on nine principles that address economic, environmental, cultural and legal issues, in addition to a commitment to continuously improve sustainable forest management.
The SFI Standard undergoes review every 5 years. The current Standard (PDF-986kb) is valid from 2005 through 2009. A typical review of the Standard takes over a year and Includes 2 public consultation periods and In person workshops, In which all stakeholders are Invited to participate. The complete SFIS Standard Setting process can be found here. You can also access a summary of the changes to the 2005-2009 SFI Standard (PDF-51kb) here.
In some cases, additional clarification of the SFI Standard is needed. This is the job of the SFI Interpretations Committee. Here you can access the Interpretations associated with the 2005-2009 SFIS (PDF-44kb). In addition, there is also a Guidance Document (PDF-44kb) with the new Standard that has additional information on certain parts of the Standard.
