History of CSA SFM

The Canadian Standards Association was chartered in 1919 and has developed over 3000 standards for various industries.

In 1995 the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers produced a national framework of criteria and indicators to help track the nation’s progress in achieving Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). In the absence of an internationally accepted Standard, the Canadian Standards Association was asked to develop a voluntary Standard for Canada.

The CSA SFM System was developed in accordance with national and international initiatives to develop criteria and indicators for SFM.

The CSA SFM Standard was first published in 1996 following more than a year of extensive public participation and development by a Technical Committee. One quarter of the Technical Committee was comprised of forest producers, while the remainder were scientists, academics, and representatives of government, aboriginals, labour unions, consumers and environmentalists.

The CSA SFM standard has been maintained in an open public process by the Technical Committee and was first reviewed and revised in 2002. A second review and revision to the standard was  completed in March, 2009.