Hungary makes bid for PEFC certification
8 November 2012Hungary has become one of the last remaining European countries with a significant share of private forest owners to develop a national forest certification scheme.
The country launched the process to develop a PEFC-compliant system at a multi-stakeholder workshop in Sopron.
Speakers from PEFC organisations in Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Slovenia told delgeates about the features of their respective national forest certification schemes.
About 45% of Hungary's forest area of about two million ha is estimated to be privately-owned, with the vast majority of properties being smaller than 1ha. Only 4% of owners have forest properties larger than 5ha.
Hungary's bid for PEFC certification is supported by the Association of Hungarian Private Forest Owners, research and development organisation Erfaret, the Hungarian Federation of Forestry and Wood Industries and PEFC Austria.
