Located on
200 acres of farm and forest land, FBC demonstrates the practical
application and implementation of sustainable development. Appropriate
technology applications of solar energy, organic agriculture,
composting, and recycling models, as well as 7 km of fully marked forest
trails and a forest museum, bring visitors on a regular basis.
Visitors
and school groups come to the centre throughout the year to attend
workshops in the conference centre and to walk around the various
demonstration sites. Founded in 1990, FBC is located in the community of
South Knowlesville, in the midst of the Acadian forest ecosystem of the
Upper St. John River valley.
(photo: Falls Brook Centre)
FBC is evolving as a place where theory and practice, local and
global, can come together and build a sustainable future. We see
forestry as an integral component of this future and are working to
encourage sustainable forestry practices throughout the province and the
world.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international
organization that enables the public to vote for good forest management
through the choice of where they spend their purchasing dollars. The
process of certification involves an independent, third-party assessment
to determine compliance of forestry practices with the standards. Once
certified, woodlot owners can market their products with the FSC logo,
giving consumers the option to purchase products from well-managed
forests. A system of Chain of Custody certification tracks the wood from
the forest to the consumer, providing the purchaser with the guarantee
that the wood product does indeed come from an FSC-certified forest.
Using as a basis the international principles and criteria of the FSC,
a Maritime working committee was formed to develop regional standards
for certification. The FSC is based on a democratic membership structure
that ensures representation from all sectors, and so the Maritime
regional committee brought together representatives from the social,
First Nations, environmental and economic sectors. The emphasis on
socially beneficial forest management, to ensure that the benefits of
the forest practices are accrued to the local people, is a strength of
the FSC that other certification bodies are lacking.
(photo: Falls Brook Centre)
A set of regional standards describing what would qualify for FSC
certification in the Maritimes were endorsed in January 2000. The task
is now to implement these standards and certify forests in the
Maritimes, in order to assist practitioners of sustainable forestry and
promote their products to the public. However, the costs of
certification present a big challenge to small woodlot owners. To assist
with the initial costs of becoming certified, here at the Falls Brook
Centre we are working on developing forms of group certification for the
Maritimes. By coming together in groups, woodlot owners can share the
costs of certification while maintaining all the benefits. A number of
different models for group certification exist, in which the differences
are mostly dependent on: group structure, the balance of who in the
group does the management planning, and who is responsible for
monitoring group members to ensure compliance with the FSC standards. We
are starting the process of forming a group in Carleton County, in
anticipation that our experiences here can then be shared with woodlot
owners across the province.
(photo: Falls Brook Centre)
FSC certification is a long-term investment in healthy forests and
healthy communities that is intended to reap market benefits to the
woodlot owners, enhance recognition of good management practices, and
help to promote sustainable forestry throughout the Maritimes. Although
the benefits of practicing sustainable forestry have been shown to be
both economically and environmentally viable, over both the short and
long term, there are currently no incentives in support of these
practices. Certification can provide this incentive.
alls
Brook Centre (FBC) is a non-profit, charitable, environmentally- focused
community development demonstration centre in New Brunswick.
