Three New Members Add Expertise to SFI Inc. Board

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI) announced today that three new members were elected to its independent Board of Directors, supporting its balanced approach to responsible forest management.

The new board members, announced during the 2010 SFI Annual Conference in Vancouver, are:

• John M. Hagan III, President, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences;
• Stewart Hardacre, President and Chief Operating Office, Habitat for Humanity Canada; and
• Charles Tattersall (Tat) Smith Jr., Professor, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto.

SFI Inc.'s 18-member board represents environmental, social and economic sectors equally to meet the many needs of forests and communities. Hagan joins the board's environmental chamber, and Hardacre and Smith are part of the social chamber. Current board members include representatives of environmental, professional and academic groups, independent loggers, family forest landowners, public officials, labor and the forest products sector.

"The new board members bring a broad range of knowledge and add depth to the multi-disciplinary SFI board," said SFI President and CEO Kathy Abusow. "They are all proven leaders and their expertise includes research in biodiversity, communities and bioenergy, and an ability to bring together diverse partners to achieve tangible results."

SFI Board Chair Marvin Brown, who is state forester in Oregon, said the board will gain a great deal from its new members during what has become a critical time for third-party forest certification. "They will join a board already committed to a goal of ensuring the SFI program has strong integrity, is grounded in science and research, and is based on conservation and community collaboration," he said. "The result is a program that will continue to be recognized globally as supporting responsible forestry."

In 2008, while he was dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Forestry, Smith led a workshop that brought together experts on sustainable biomass production, resulting in recommendations and changes in the SFI 2010-2014 Standard, which was introduced at the start of 2010. "SFI for me is where the rubber meets the road," he said. "We have often tested our environmental research by seeing how well it meets SFI standard requirements. The new SFI standard is more sensitive to the bioeconomy, and I'm keen to take this further as a member of the board."

Stewart Hardacre, who joined Habitat for Humanity Canada in 2008, said he welcomed the opportunity to work more closely with SFI Inc. The SFI program and its participants have supported the work of various Habitat affiliates in Canada and the United States by volunteering time and donating resources for projects that include the first Habitat home on a First Nations reserve in Canada and the first Habitat homes certified to the Built Green Canada and the ANSI/ICC 700-2008: National Green Building Standard green rating systems. "Habitat for Humanity Canada and SFI both are grass-roots organizations that rely on collaboration with diverse partners to make a difference in our communities," Hardacre said.

Hagan, whose work with the non-profit Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Manomet, Mass., has helped transform how the forest sector thinks about protecting biodiversity, said he looks forward to helping the SFI program achieve its goals. "As an environmental research organization, Manomet is committed to having unbiased science used by decision makers," he said. "Science is a powerful tool for helping the forest sector achieve and balance society's economic, social, and environmental values. SFI shares this same commitment to the application of solid science for the public good. I'm honored to have the chance to contribute Manomet's experience with the practical application of science to the service of the SFI program."

SFI Inc. is a registered charitable organization responsible for the largest single forest certification standard in the world. The SFI program works with a wide array of partners to promote responsible forest management in North America and responsible fiber sourcing worldwide. More than 175 million acres/70 million hectares are certified to the SFI forest standard in the United States and Canada. The standard is based on 14 core principles that promote sustainable forest management, including measures to protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk, and Forests with Exceptional Conservation Value.

Editors Note: Background information is below, including biographies of John Hagan, Stewart Hardacre and Tat Smith, and a list of current SFI Inc. board members. More information about SFI Inc.'s independent governance is available at www.sfiprogram.org/sustainable-forestry-initiative/sfi-governance.php.

About SFI Inc.

SFI Inc. is an independent 501c(3) non-profit charitable organization, and is solely responsible for maintaining, overseeing and improving the internationally recognized Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program (www.sfiprogram.org). Across North America, more than 175 million acres/70 million hectares are certified to the SFI forest management standard, making it the largest single standard in the world. SFI chain-of-custody certification tells buyers how much certified, responsibly sourced and/or recycled content is in a product. The SFI program's unique fiber sourcing requirements promote responsible forest management on all suppliers' lands. SFI Inc. is governed by a three-chamber board of directors representing environmental, social and economic sectors equally.

BACKGROUNDER: JOHN M. HAGAN III

John M. Hagan III has been president of non-profit Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Manomet, Mass., since 2008. Manomet (www.manomet.org) works to build a sustainable world through a non-advocacy use of science that allows policy makers and the public to make well-informed decisions.

Hagan joined Manomet in 1986, and in 1997 he established the center's Forest Conservation Program, based in Brunswick, Maine. He helped transform how the forest sector thinks about protecting biodiversity, and has worked closely with environmental groups and timber companies. With a series of grants from the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry, he helped develop a simple, science-based approach to selecting sustainability indicators that include society's economic, social and environmental values.

Hagan is the recipient of the Integrity in Conservation Award from the New England Society of American Foresters (2009) and the Austin Wilkins Forest Stewardship Award from the State of Maine (2007). He is a member of the Society of American Foresters and Society for Conservation Biology.

Hagan earned a Ph.D. in zoology and Master of Science in wildlife ecology from North Carolina State University, and a Bachelor of Science in environmental science from Texas Christian University. He lives on Georgetown Island, Maine, and maintains offices in both Brunswick, Maine, and at Manomet's headquarters in Massachusetts.

BACKGROUNDER: STEWART HARDACRE

Stewart Hardacre became Habitat for Humanity Canada's first chief operating officer in 2008, and less than a year later was named president and chief operating officer. Habitat for Humanity Canada (www.habitat.ca) has 73 affiliates and 50,000 volunteers across Canada, and has placed almost 1,800 families into new homes since 1985.

Hardacre has more than 20 years of experience in senior executive positions. Before joining Habitat for Humanity, he had been executive director of McMillan Binch Mendelsohn LLP, a business law firm with offices in Toronto and Montreal, and had also been the Canadian director of finance and administration for Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a global human resource and benefits consultant.

Accredited as a certified management accountant (C.M.A.), Hardacre has pursued professional development and leadership programs at the Harvard School of Business and Queens University Executive Leadership program in Kingston, Ontario. An active and passionate volunteer with Habitat for Humanity before he joined the organization full-time, he had served as treasurer of the board of directors of Habitat for Humanity Halton (Ontario), as well as participating on a Global Village trip to South America.

BACKGROUNDER: CHARLES TATTERSALL (TAT) SMITH JR.

Tat Smith is a professor at the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto, and was dean of the faculty from 2005 to 2010. He came to Toronto in 2005 from College Station, Texas, where he had been professor and head of the Department of Forest Science at Texas A&M University. Prior to that, he was a program manager for the New Zealand Forest Research Institute from 1993 to 1998, and was on the forestry faculty of the University of New Hampshire in Durham for 10 years.

Smith is a task leader with the International Energy Agency bioenergy collaboration, focusing on projects related to the development of bioenergy resources from forest feedstock. In 2008, he led a bioenergy workshop for SFI Inc. that brought together experts on sustainable biomass production systems as well as technical experts in areas such as forestry, biodiversity, and water and soil protection. The workshop led to recommendations as part of the SFI 2010-2014 standard development process.

Smith earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Virginia in 1972, a Master of Science in Forestry from the University of Vermont in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Forest Resources from the University of Maine in 1984.

BACKGROUNDER: SFI INC. BOARD OF DIRECTORS

September 2010

Board members representing the environmental sector, which includes non-profit environmental or conservation organizations:

• Tom Franklin, Senior Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
• John M. Hagan III, President, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences
• Roger Sedjo, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future
• Larry Selzer, President and CEO, The Conservation Fund
• Steven A. Williams, President & CEO, Wildlife Management Institute
• Mike Zagata, Executive Director and CEO, Ruffed Grouse Society

Board members representing the social sector, which includes community or social interest groups such as universities, labor, family forest owners or government agencies:

• Marvin Brown (Chair), State Forester, Oregon Department of Forestry
• Mary Motlow, (Secretary-Treasurer) representing family forest landowners
• Richard W. (Dick) Brinker, Dean and Professor, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University
• Stewart Hardacre, President and Chief Operating Office, Habitat for Humanity Canada
• Charles Tattersall (Tat) Smith Jr., Professor, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto
• William V. (Bill) Street Jr., Director, Woodworkers Department, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

Board members representing the economic sector, which includes the forest, paper and wood products industry or other for-profit forest ownership or management entities:

• Robert A. (Bob) Luoto (Vice Chair), representing independent professional loggers and the American Loggers Council
• Matthew Donegan, Co-President, Forest Capital Partners LLC
• Daniel S. Fulton, President and CEO, Weyerhaeuser Company
• Rick R. Holley President & CEO, Plum Creek Timber Company Inc
• Henry H. (Hank) Ketcham, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd.
• Patrick J. Moore, Chairman, President & CEO, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation

SOURCE Sustainable Forestry Initiative