About Us
History
The 1990s saw rising consumer concern about the environmental impacts
of forest management across the world and a demand for assurance that
timber products were sourced from well managed forests.
There was much debate on how best to achieve this in the UK context.
Initially there was considerable disagreement; some advocated reliance
on the governmental controls already in place and others championed a
new process known as forest certification involving independent
verification against a published standard defining sustainable forest
management.
In time, the UK’s forestry, environmental and social communities chose
to work together to develop an independent standard to reflect the
requirements of the UK Government’s UK Forestry Standard and through
this the guidelines adopted by European Forestry Ministers at Helsinki
in 1993 and Lisbon in 1998.
The launch of the UK Woodland Assurance Standard (UKWAS) in 1999 was a
landmark event for UK forestry; it was achieved through a sense of
common purpose and the sheer hard work of those involved and it put the
UK at the forefront of the global certification movement. The standard
was adopted by the Forest Stewardship Council and later by PEFC UK as
the basis for their UK certification programmes.
In 2002, a not-for-profit company was established by the UKWAS partners
to own and manage the standard.
Certification is now an established part of the UK forestry scene and
the UKWAS has made an important contribution to raising the standards of
woodland management.
The second edition published in 2006 was again developed by a
multi-stakeholder steering group taking full account of responses to a
public consultation. It incorporates various changes reflecting a
greater understanding of some complex issues plus necessary updates and
clarifications.
The UKWAS continues to serve a vital role in enabling producers to
demonstrate their good credentials to consumers.
Milestones in the development of forest certification in the UK
- UK Forestry Accord - agreement between business and environmental and social NGOs on a set of objectives and principles for responsible forestry (1996)
- Forestry Commission acts as a facilitator in bringing together a broad range of stakeholder groups to develop an 'audit protocol' to assess sustainable forest management (1997)
- UK Government launches a UK Forestry Standard (1998)
- Agreement reached by the stakeholders that ownership of any certification standard must rest with the stakeholders and that all decisions must be based on consensus
- Independent 'UK Woodland Assurance Scheme' concept developed - a certification standard for use in others' certification programmes
- UKWAS standard endorsed by Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and launched in May 1999
- UKWAS name later changed from 'scheme' to 'standard'
- UKWAS provides standard for PEFC UK scheme (2002)
- An UKWAS company established to own and manage the UKWAS standard on behalf of UK forestry, environmental and social communities (2002)
- UKWAS website launched (2005)
- First UKWAS revision completed (2006)
- Concordats developed between UKWAS Steering Group and FSC UK and PEFC UK setting out each party's respective role (2007)
- Small Woods Review initiated (2007)
- Nearly 50% of all UK woodland and c.80% of the timber harvest
certified by FSC against UKWAS standard (2008).