AssiDomän certifies the forest according to the FSC€s criteria for sustainable forest management

AssiDomän certifies the forest according to the FSC's criteria for sustainable forest management A proposal for common criteria for certification of forestry were announced on Wednesday by the Swedish FSC working group. The criteria are endorsed by representatives of the forestry industry, certain forest owner organisations, environmental organizations, buyer companies, trade unions and the indigenous Sami people (Lapps). AssiDomän now continues the work towards certification according to the FSC's criteria: "We are going to certify our holdings of 3.3 million hectares of productive forest land. The goal is to finish most of it this year. We hope to certify two districts in the Örebro Forest Management District by the end of this summer. Then we will continue with our large forest management districts up north, Älvsbyn and Kalix, which we plan to have certified in the early autumn," says Olof Johansson, Staff Ecologist in charge of nature conservation at AssiDomän Skog & Trä. "A great deal has changed in Swedish forestry since the clear-cutting practices of the '60s and '70s. We are very happy that we have now arrived at a common, Swedish standard for independent certification which even the environmental movement can support. We at AssiDomän are now able to meet the demands on certification which our customers in Europe are increasingly making," says AssiDomän's CEO Lennart Ahlgren in a comment on today's decision. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an independent international organization which, with ten principles as a basis, works for the establishment of national criteria for forest management. Based on these criteria, independent organizations can then certify forestry companies. The criteria concern such aspects of forest management as reforestation, biodiversity, preservation of virgin forests and other areas of high natural value, consideration for the interests of indigenous peoples, etc. SGS-Forestry is the name of the independent company that determines whether AssiDomän's forestry practices meet the criteria for FSC certificationAssiDomän is one of Europe's leading forest products companies. Production is concentrated on sawn timber, packaging paper and packaging. The Group, one of the world's largest forest-owners, had a turnover in 1996 of over SEK 19 billion and has over 18,000 employees. The number of shareholders is nearly 335,000. AssiDomän AB Corporate Communications 19 June 1997 For further information, please contact: Olof Johansson, Staff Ecologist in charge of nature conservation at AssiDomän Skog & Trä, +46 70 586 22 58 Roger Asserståhl, President of AssiDomän Skog&Trä AB, +46 8 655 91 29 ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1997/06/19/19990331BIT00230/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1997/06/19/19990331BIT00230/bit0002.pdf