world news - 12.11.2004
North American forest leaders to meet in Toronto on March 1-3, 2005
ForestLeadership announced the program for its 2005 annual conference, featuring an exciting combination of keynote addresses, plenary and breakout sessions, CEO and customers’ panels, focus panels, a strategic certification dialogue, receptions, a gala dinner and awards ceremony, as well as excellent networking opportunities.
Slated to be one of North America’s leading sustainable forestry conferences in 2005, conference discussions will explore various aspects of one of the most fascinating trends in North American forestry: the development of Partnerships Towards Sustainability.
Featuring some 40 prominent speakers from corporations, governmental agencies, conservation, indigenous, research and other organizations involved in sustainable forestry and responsible products trade, the conference presents three exceptional keynote addresses by the Ontario Minister of Natural Resources, David Ramsay; US Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth; and the Director of the United Nations Forum on Forests, Pekka Patosaari.
Key lessons from partnerships will be highlighted through presentations and discussions of the work of such corporations as MeadWestvaco, StoraEnso, Hancock Timber Resource Management, Al-Pac and Office Depot, as well as of conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, WWF, Wildlife Habitat Canada and the Conservation Fund.
Through focused panels, the conference will present in-depth discussions of prominent and important partnerships -— the Forest and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, the Ontario Forest Accord, the Boreal Leadership Council and the BC Central Coast Land and Resource Management Plan (the successor to the Joint Solutions Project).
A CEO Panel will provide delegates with the unique opportunity to hear the perspectives of two corporate leaders. Sandy McDade, President of Weyerhaeuser Company Ltd and Thomas Stephens, CEO of Boise,** will explain their corporate sustainable forestry and social responsibility strategies and the multi-stakeholder partnerships their corporations are pursuing. Prior to that panel, a customers’ panel will feature senior executives from Proctor & Gamble and Lowe’s.
Forest certification will be one of the key topics at the conference. There will be a panel focusing on the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in certification, as well as a strategic dialogue on the most current certification issues, gathering the leaders of three prominent North American forest certification programs — William Banzhaf from the Sustainable Forestry Board; Heiko Liedeker of the Forest Stewardship Council and Peter Johnson from CSA-International.
Short break-out sessions will also be held dealing with topics such as the Canadian National Forest Strategy, the CSA / Ontario certification agreement, the new SFI standard and membership opportunities in the Forest & Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.
Lesprom
See also:
- — Barlinek Board —
- — Finnish Raute to supply timber-processing equipment worth EUR 4.8 million to China
- — European Softwood Conference
- — Czech Republic: First OSB-Plant
- — Paper and paperboard production in Finland rose by 11%, sawn wood was down 1.5% in 3Q 2004
