Originally European, PEFC takes into account the specific features of small forests, characteristic of European ecosystems.
Created in Europe at the end of the 1990s, PEFC promotes itself today as the largest certification system for good forest management in the world in terms of surface area.
PEFC, Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes, previously the Paneuropean Forest Council, is an independent not-for-profit NGO, founded in 1999.
It was initially launched in 12 European countries (including Belgium) which were anxious to set up a certification system taking into account the special features of small forests, characteristic of European ecosystems. PEFC’s objective is the promotion of management which respects the environment, but which is also socially beneficial and economically viable.
Its certification is based on recognition by PEFC International of each national certification system (as forests differ from one country to another!).
These 305 criteria are based on decisions taken at major international conferences on the environment, such as in Helsinki in 1993. With 225 million hectares of woodland certified throughout the world, PEFC has today gone significantly beyond the frontiers of the European Union, and is particularly well established in North and Central America. Based on voluntary membership, PEFC certification does not give guarantees on the quality of the wood purchased, but rather on the sustainable forestry methods, which have produced it. Alongside certification of the forest itself, PEFC provides certification of the “Control Chain”, issued to businesses active in the processing chain.
If only one of these businesses does not have a certificate (or it has been withdrawn at the end of an annual inspection carried out by an independent organisation) the final product cannot bear the PEFC logo. In Belgium, 281,000 hectares of forests (exclusively in the Walloon region) were PEFC certified in 2009.
