Sustainable forest management tools

Since 1980s relationship between forest products trade and environment become an international political issue. Since the UNCED, the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) has been at the centre of international fora on forests. In Europe, on throughout 1990s, three Ministerial Conferences defined the SFM principles. Consequently, several national and international forest certification schemes are implemented in many countries, during the last years. The aim of this paper is to analyze the main forest certification schemes, with particular reference to Europe