The PEFC family continues to grow!

15 December 2016 News

“We were delighted to welcome three new national members to the PEFC Alliance during our General Assembly”, said Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC International, as Macedonia, Romania and Thailand became the latest countries to join PEFC.

“In fact, this year has been an incredible year for us, with six new national members and four new international stakeholder members. We’ve not had a year like this since we were created over 16 years ago!”

Voting in action

Any organization wishing to join the PEFC Alliance must be voted in by the other PEFC members. For most of the year, this is done through a postal ballot. But once a year, at the General Assembly, all our members come together and get to cast their votes in person.

This meant that representatives from both Romania and Thailand could be present to see their membership approved by their peers.

“We would like to thank all the organizations that have helped to set us up, particularly PEFC which has mentored and supported us over the last years,” said Pimjai Leeissaranukul from The Federation of Thai Industries (F.T.I.), following the approval of FTI as the national member for Thailand.

“The advice and support from the whole PEFC alliance will be invaluable to us as we continue our journey.”

“Thank you to everyone that voted for us,” said István Tőke from PEFC Romania.

“The last 25 years have seen great changes to forest ownership in Romania, moving from 100% state ownership to a 50/50 share – and the restitution process is still not finished.”

“We hope that our national forest certification system will achieve PEFC endorsement by the end of 2017, and that we can welcome our first PEFC-certified forest in early 2018!”

Proud to be part of PEFC family

Though he couldn’t make it in person, Vladimir Stojanovski, President of The Council for Sustainable Forest Management in the Republic of Macedonia, also expressed delight in becoming a PEFC member.

"I would like to thank you for accepting us into PEFC family and for the support provided over the past several years,” said Mr. Stojanovski.

“We are proud to be part of PEFC family and hope to make an historic step for sustainable forest management in Macedonia. We want to bring the Macedonian forestry one step forward following global efforts for sustainable forestry.”

Our new national members

The new national members are The Council for Sustainable Forest Management in the Republic of Macedonia, PEFC Romania and The Federation of Thai Industries (F.T.I.).

All three of them are already working on the development of their national forest certification system. By joining PEFC, they have now completed an important step on the journey towards the PEFC endorsement of their system.

As Ms. Leeissaranukul from FTI said “our mission starts now, and today is a milestone”.