Sustainable Forestry Initiative Announces Three New Board Members Representing Broad-ranging Stakeholder Interests

OTTAWA, Ontario and WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Three leaders have been elected to the independent Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc.® (SFI®) Board of Directors, to fill positions in each of its three chambers, Environmental, Social and Economic.

"SFI will benefit enormously from the wisdom, perspective and passion these leaders bring to our Board of Directors," SFI President and CEO Kathy Abusow said. "By representing broad-ranging and balanced stakeholder interests, Bob Matters, Jonathan Haufler, and Jim Hannan will help continue the momentum SFI has built to ensure healthy, thriving forests for generations to come."

"As someone who has represented workers' interests nearly all my life, I'm pleased to join the SFI Board to work with progressives who are striving to ensure that renewable forest products come from well-managed sources of supply," said Bob Matters, Chair of the United Steelworkers Wood Council. "Working families and communities across North America depend on forests, and we all need to work together to ensure the health and future of our forests."

"I've followed SFI as it grew into a highly credible system for assuring sound and publicly supported forest management," said Jonathan Haufler, President-Elect of The Wildlife Society.  "I'm pleased to have this opportunity to assist in maintaining the quality and integrity of the SFI program as it continues to adapt and adjust to new information and new challenges."

"I have great respect and appreciation for the work SFI does to promote responsible forest management and sustainable forestry," said James Hannan, CEO and President of Georgia-Pacific. "All of us who depend on the future of our forests need to continue to work together to achieve our shared goals, and I am pleased to play a role in that crucial process."

SFI Inc.'s governance represents environmental, social and economic sectors equally to meet the many needs of forests and communities. SFI's 18-member board includes representatives of public and private landowners, manufacturers of forest products, conservation groups, academia, aboriginal interests, community organizations, labor and government officials.

About the New SFI Board Members:

Bob Matters, Chair of the Steelworkers Wood Council, has been elected to fill a seat in the SFI Board's Social Chamber. An active member of the union since 1977, Matters started working full-time for the Local in 1992 and was elected president in 1994. He was a member of the committee that oversaw the merger of IWA Canada and the United Steelworkers in 2004 and has been Chair of the Steelworkers Wood Council since 2006. In that role, he is responsible for the Forestry and Forest Products sector of the United Steelworkers Union, with membership from British Columbia to Ontario. He is also Union co-chair of the IWA-Forest Industry Pension Plan.

Jonathan Haufler has been elected to fill a vacant seat in the SFI Board's Environmental Chamber.  Jon is president-elect of The Wildlife Society, a nonprofit that works to ensure that wildlife and habitats are conserved through management actions that take into careful consideration relevant scientific information. The professional members of TWS manage, conserve, and study wildlife populations and habitats, actively manage forests, conserve wetlands, restore endangered species, conserve wildlife on private and public lands, resolve wildlife damage and disease problems, and enhance biological diversity. Haufler is also Executive Director of the Ecosystem Management Research Institute and previously worked as the Manager of Wildlife and Ecology Programs for Boise Cascade Corp. and as a professor of Wildlife Ecology at Michigan State University. He has a B.S. in wildlife management from the University of New Hampshire, an M.S. in wildlife management from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in wildlife biology from Colorado State University.

Jim Hannan, CEO and President of Georgia-Pacific, has been elected to fill a vacant seat in the SFI Board's Economic Chamber. Previously, Jim served as GP's president and chief operating office after being promoted from executive vice president and chief administrative officer. Hannan is a member of the board of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, the Atlanta History Center, The Commerce Club, The Center for Human and Civil Rights, Holy Innocents Episcopal School and the Georgia Research Alliance, and serves as a Trustee of the Woodruff Arts Center and of the California State East Bay Educational Foundation. His industry board affiliations include American Forest & Paper Association (past chairman), National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI), Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE). In July 2013, he was named the 2013 North American CEO of the Year by RISI.

About Sustainable Forestry Initiative
SFI Inc. is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that is solely responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the internationally recognized Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®) program. Across the United States and Canada, more than 240 million acres/ 100 million hectares are certified to the SFI forest management standard. In addition, the SFI program's unique fiber sourcing requirements promote responsible forest management on all suppliers' lands. SFI chain-of-custody (COC) certification tracks the percentage of fiber from certified forests, certified sourcing and post-consumer recycled content. SFI on-product labels identify both certified sourcing and COC claims to help consumers make responsible purchasing decisions. SFI Inc. is governed by a three-chamber board of directors representing environmental, social and economic sectors equally. Learn more at http://www.sfiprogram.org/ and http://sfiprogram.org/Buy-SFI/.

SOURCE Sustainable Forestry Initiative