The Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) recently launched a negative advertising campaign aimed, it said, at compelling many of Maine’s forest landowners into having their forestry practices certified according to the standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). To read the ad, one would think that nothing has ever been done to protect Maine’s forests, and that the FSC standards were the only ones worth following. On both counts, the NRCM is wrong.

In 1999, the 118th Legislature initiated a long-term plan to ensure that Maine’s forest values were protected for future generations. The comprehensive plan instructed the Maine Forest Service (MFS) to develop statewide forest sustainability benchmarks concerning water quality, timer sustainability and several other important indicators of sustainability in our forests. The MFS was also directed to conduct regular statewide inventories and to produce a report every other year to the people of Maine on the condition of Maine’s forests.

In addition to mandating regular, rigorous reporting, the 118th Legislature initiated additional safeguard standards around the use of clear-cuts, including a requirement for scientific justification for them.

Finally, the Legislature created an annual report on the progress of forest certifications in Maine. In that report are listed all the certifications that landowners have achieved in the past year. We included the listing of certification programs other than FSC because, unlike NRCM, we were willing and able to recognize the value of the work being done by the forest products industry through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), or other independent audit programs such as ISO.

Just because the FSC standards were created by people outside the forest products industry, it is too simplistic to claim that they are the only standards worth following. That would mean turning a blind eye to the time and effort that the forest landowners have spent developing their own sustainability benchmarks, as well in training their members to meet them.

Also, in claiming that only FSC is independent, NRCM neglects to mention that in Maine, all SFI certifications must also undergo an independent, third-party, sustainability audit. Maybe they honestly didn’t know that.

If the people of Maine are looking for the truth about forest certification in Maine, they need look no farther than John Cashwell, president of Seven Islands. His company has undergone both types of audits, and he was recently quoted in this newspaper as saying that they are “substantially alike.” Both, he rightly pointed out, result in better forestry.

Nothing is gained by the NRCM’s dogged adherence to the politics of deception and divisiveness . On the contrary, a great deal could potentially be lost. For the more NRCM casts inaccurate doubt on other certification programs, the more reluctant landowners will become to spend the time and money necessary to meet the standards of any certification program, including FSC.

When it comes to the Maine woods, it’s time for NRCM to recognize just how far we’ve come in Maine, as well as to admit how much people both inside and outside the forest products industry want sustainable, working forests.

More than eight million acres are now FSC, ISO and SFI audited. While I can appreciate the need for any organization to pay its bills, we have to say that running a misleading, malicious ad campaign is not the right way to do it.

State Sens. John Nutting (District 20), Marge Kilkelly (District 16) and Richard Kneeland (District 2) are members of the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation.