VicForests Certification
VicForests chose the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) to be audited against, as it is based on the recognised international framework of the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14000 series of internal, voluntary environmental management standards.
To meet the requirements of the AFS, we have developed a comprehensive Sustainable Forest Management System (SFMS) covering all forest management operations including harvesting, haulage, timber resource sales, harvested coupe regeneration and roadworks.
A summary of VicForests' Sustainable Forest Management System:
VicForests uses SAI Global to audit our SFMS against AFS requirements. We successfully achieved AFS certification on 8 February 2007, following two pre-certification audits.
As required by AFS, surveillance audits are conducted every six months following the certification audit. A full re-certification audit is conducted three years after the original certification audit.
Here is VicForests' most recent AFS surveillance audit - January 2009, as produced by SAI Global.