Conservation biology and forest certification: Working together toward ecological sustainability

We examine how forest certification can be used more effectively to produce concrete conservation results on forests that have been designated for tim ber production, by limiting forest fragmentation (thereby improving forest intactness over a landscape scale), and by conserving structural diversity, wildlife habitats, late successional components, natural disturbance regim es, and other components of biodiversity. We conclude that forest certifica tion, as an integrative tool to be used in silvicultural management process es, can play an important role in promoting the sustainability of managed f orests and of forestry.