Wisconsin State Parks Leaf Out to SFI Certification

Devil's Lake, in Baraboo Wisconsin Thousands of visitors to Devil’s Lake State Park, one of Wisconsin’s most popular parks, come for the famous scenery, the lush forest and the beautiful lake to hike, boat, swim, fish or picnic. What most visitors don’t know is that forestry auditors from NSF International Strategic Registrations (NSF-ISR) have been there too, not primarily to enjoy the wonderful setting, but to help ensure that the resources will be sustained into the future. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources managed lands, including state parks, are responsibly managed and certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) standard. Certified lands include state parks, state forests, wildlife areas, and natural areas. SFI is a nonprofit organization devoted to encouraging the responsible management of the world’s forests. NSF-ISR handles all SFI certifications for the Wisconsin DNR.

The SFI audit process includes document reviews, interviews, and on-site inspections of ongoing or completed forest practices to verify conformance to the SFI standards. For instance, to verify protection of water quality in streams, lakes and other water bodies, auditors inspected a range of field sites close to water resources to confirm program effectiveness. NSF-ISR also selected and interviewed stakeholders such as contract loggers, state agencies and other interested parties, and interviewed employees within the Wisconsin DNR organization to confirm that the SFI Standard was understood and actively implemented.

Priorities of the SFI standard include:

Sustainable Forestry – Meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs by practicing a land stewardship ethic that integrates reforestation and the managing, growing, nurturing, and harvesting of trees for useful products with the conservation of soil, air and water quality, biological diversity, wildlife and aquatic habitat, recreation, and aesthetics.
Responsible Practices – Use and promote forestry practices that are both scientifically credible and economically, environmentally and socially responsible
Reforestation and Productive Capacity – To provide for regeneration after harvest and maintain the productive capacity of the forestland base.
Forest Health and Productivity – To protect forests from uncharacteristic and economically or environmentally undesirable wildfire, pests, diseases, and other damaging agents and thus maintain and improve long-term forest health and productivity.
Long-Term Forest and Soil Productivity
Protection of Water Resources
Protection of Special Sites and Biological Diversity – To manage forests and lands of special significance (biologically, geologically, historically or culturally important) in a manner that takes into account their unique qualities and to promote a diversity of wildlife habitats, forest types, and ecological or natural community types.
Legal Compliance – To comply with applicable federal, provincial, state, and local forestry and related environmental laws, statutes, and regulations.
Continual Improvement – To continually improve the practice of forest management and also to monitor, measure and report performance in achieving the commitment to sustainable forestry.

One of the most important parts of certification is the requirement for continual improvement. The primary areas where the DNR is focusing on continuous improvement include property master planning, facilities management and improving habitat diversity in order to manage each state forest, state park or other DNR managed lands as a healthy ecosystem . Other management priorities include protecting scenic views, sustaining large canopy cover and shade in recreation areas, enhancing or protecting forest health, education and research and sustaining and enhancing local water sheds and water resources.

Forest management certification helps to ensure that these properties will still be lush and beautiful when future generations travel to Devil’s Lake State Park or any of the over 1.5 million acres of Wisconsin DNR managed properties to hike, boat, swim, fish or picnic. Or maybe they will just come to enjoy the enduring beauty of a well managed forest area.

To find out more on the NSF-ISR SFI Program, e-mail questions to information@nsf-isr.org or check out our web site at www.nsf-isr.org.