The Forest Stewardship Council provides certification for the forestry industry and its products.

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It dates back to 1993, when the Forest Stewardship Council, an alliance of greens and loggers, drew up a list of rules for sustainable forestry.

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The answer is not to promote boycotts of tropical timber or insist, as the Forest Stewardship Council does, that the same forest management rules apply to planted softwood as rainforests.

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"One example is the Forest Stewardship Council which is now a global timber certification scheme which in the last 10 years has managed to certify as well manage an area of more than 25 million hectares of forest, " he said.

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