First Dutch forest owners achieve PEFC certification

24 June 2016 News

It is time to celebrate in the Netherlands as the country’s first forest owners receive their PEFC forest management certificates. This means that 2,470 hectares of Dutch forests are now PEFC-certified.

“It’s great that we can finally offer a choice to Dutch forest owners,” said Kees Boon, Chairman of PEFC Netherlands.

“PEFC certification allows them to demonstrate that their unique ways of sustainable forest management meet international requirements and gives them access to the market for certified timber.”

Wim Boom, who owns the Landgoed De Barkel estate, was the first forest owner to engage with group manager Ingenieursbureau Evan Buytendijk (IEB) to get his forest management practices certified.

“In 2011 our estate was chosen as the ‘Forest of the Year’ in a contest organized by PEFC Netherlands. This brought us into contact with PEFC and IEB. The PEFC standard meets our management philosophy, and IEB provided us with the perfect tool to implement it,” said Wim Boom, explaining this reason for choosing PEFC certification.

Being born on De Barkel, Mr. Boom has always been connected with nature. His great-grandfather acquired the estate in 1906 when it was just 86 hectares, and like his father and grandfather before him, Mr. Boom has spent all his life on the estate.

In the early days, full use was made of everything the forest provided, but over the last 50 years nature took over from production, and nowadays harvesting is limited to the estate’s own needs. Thanks to this deliberate type of extensive management, standing and fallen dead trees are abundant.

Mr. Boom was joined by Hans Gierveld of Landgoed Twickel and Jan Zandvoort of Landgoed Weldam, who also proudly accepted their PEFC certificates.

PEFC group certification

The three forest owners have achieved their PEFC certificates through group certification, with Ingenieursbureau Evan Buytendijk (IEB) acting as the group manager. Group certification was developed by PEFC to enable small-forest owners to organize themselves, pool their resources and work together to achieve certification. The group manager has overall responsibility for ensuring that all forest owners within the ‘group’ certified area manage their forests inline with the PEFC requirements.