Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. (President: Masatomo Nakamura) is pleased to announce today the acquisition of forest certification from the Sustainable Green Ecosystem Council (SGEC)1, Japan's unique forest certification system, for all Company-owned forests located in the Chugoku and Shikoku Districts and some of the Company-owned forests in Kinki. The forests span 65 locations and have a total area of 6,956 hectares.

The certification follows the certifications obtained for the Company-owned forests in Kitayama, Shizuoka (in 2003 for 673 hectares), all of the Company-owned forests in Kyushu (in 2005 for 18,317 hectares) and in Hokkaido (in 2005 for 43,674 hectares). The result is that the Company has acquired SGEC forest certification for about 77% (approx. 70,000 hectares) of the 90,000 hectares of Company-owned domestic forests.

 

The Company-owned forests for which the certifications have been obtained on this occasion are spread across ten prefectures in Kinki, Chugoku and Shikoku. The forests vary in species of vegetation and scale, and 67% of all the forests are artificial. Plantations of pines as well as cedar and Japanese cypress account for most forests. Multi-purpose applications of the forests as economic, environmental and cultural assets have been developed. The accreditation committee of the SGEC forest certification system (Japan Forest Technology Association; JAFTA) recognized that forestry activities are systematically being conducted with consideration being given to biological diversity and compatibility with the natural conditions of each mountainside forest.

 

The Company clearly states its goals in the action guidelines of its Environmental Charter, and that is to obtain forest certifications for all its overseas and domestically owned forests by 2008. So far, the Company has acquired the ISO14001 certification for environmental management in Chile, Australia and South Africa. In addition, the Company has successively acquired FSC in South Africa and AFS2 in Australia, and is currently promoting the acquisition of Certforchile2 in Chile for forestry certifications that lead to labeling. The company is also planning to obtain SGEC certification with respect to the domestic Company-owned forests. This is scheduled to take place by the end of FY 2007 for the rest of the Company-owned forests, which are located in Tohoku and other districts. The Company expects to obtain forest certifications for all of the Company-owned forests in both Japan and abroad in 2007, moving the deadline forward by one year.

 

Note1: The Sustainable Green Ecosystem Council was established in June 2003 as a system to improve Japan's forest management and to guarantee sound cultivation of forests in which sustainable lumber production is compatible with rich natural environment.

 

Note2: AFS (The Australian Forestry Standard) and Certforchile are certification systems for Australia and Chile respectively. AFS and PEFC (The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) recognize each other and Certforchile has the same mutual recognition relationship with PEFC as well. PEFC promotes the inspection of the forest certification drawn up by individual countries as well as mutual recognition between such certification systems, based on the inter-governmental process for sustainable forest management.