Abitibi-Consolidated's Fort William Woodlands Division has added 800,000 hectares of forested land under certification.
The company announced the forest was certified under the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) sustainable forest management (SFM) standard. The Quality Management Institute (QMI) conducted Abitibi-Consolidated's third-party audits on the Fort William, Quebec-West and Newfoundland Woodlands divisions and recommended that each be registered under CSA's SFM standard. The three areas will add 4.2 million hectares of forested land to the existing 1.6 million hectares of Abitibi-Consolidated's forests already registered under the CSA standard for a total of 5.8 million hectares. "The certification of these woodland divisions demonstrates Abitibi-Consolidated's commitment to implement sustainable forest management standards in all of the company's North American facilities by the end of 2005," states Abitibi-Consolidated's president and CEO John Weaver. "The results are a testimony that our forest management practices are sustainable for the long run.
"Abitibi-Consolidated is proud of its continued industry leadership in achieving third-party certification," he says.
