The forest industry may object strenuously to the phrasing of a recent poll on certifying their cutting practices, but the results show a useful path for the future of the industry. They are especially important given the concern Maine has had in recent years about how heavily the forest is being cut.

At the behest of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Strategic Marketing Services recently asked 400 residents statewide whether they favored the idea of an independent group, called the Forest Stewardship Council, certifying that practices by timber companies are not causing harm wildlife, water and future timber supplies. Not surprisingly, a large majority of the public liked the idea a lot, and a similar majority preferred the independent certification over what was characterized as “a program developed by timber corporations, where standards for the protection of water, woods and wildlife are optional or open-ended and public reporting is left up to the timber companies.”

The poll takes on two issues central to the current debate over forests. On the first — how should the public ensure the forests are protected — there is broad and deepening agreement among both industry and environmental groups that certification provides a strong solution. The second part — who should be doing the certifying — is where the sides part company.

But they shouldn’t there, either. Certification is attractive because it brings a level of expertise into the forestry debate, and properly assumes the general public has neither the background nor the time to judge how large a clear cut should be or how many trees should be left in a selection cut. For that same reason, the various sets of standards should be held up to popularity contests.

Shortly after he took office, Gov. Angus King appointed a sustainability council on Maine’s woods. Without explicitly choosing one organization’s certifying standards over another, such a council could identify standards important to Maine, which could then be used to determine whether landowners could claim to have met certification. The standards would have to be strong enough to withstand peer review among the nation’s silvaculturalists, be recognized as appropriate by retailers, who are demanding such certification more and more often, and flexible enough to account for the multitude of variables in the woods. Their very flexibility, in fact, might be seen as a strength.

Setting those standards, of course, would engender quite a debate, but at least it would begin on the common ground of agreement that certification is needed. That could improve the tone of the argument significantly.