AUGUSTA, ME – Trust to Conserve Northeast Forestlands (TCNEF) Executive Director Ted Wright has been reelected to the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) U.S. Board of Directors to serve his second consecutive three-year term.
Wright, who has served on the Board’s executive committee for the past year, was appointed Vice-Chair of the Board in late September and will become Chairman next year. He is the first-ever representative of the logging industry to serve on the FSC Board.
Wright is a Maine native and Executive Director of both the TCNEF and the Northeast Master Logger® Certification Program, which the Trust oversees. In 2019 under Wright’s leadership, the TCNEF received an FSC Leadership Award.
“I’m honored at the opportunity to continue serving on the FSC US Board,” Wright said. “As Vice Chair of the board I will continue to represent the interests and perspectives of professional loggers who are committed to the responsible management of forests for all as well as the protection of small rural communities that they reside and work in near FSC-certified forests.”
“I served with Ted on the FSC US board for the past three years,” Linda Walker, Senior Director, Forests, World Wildlife Fund, said. “His balanced perspective, strategic thinking, and passion for the forests and the communities that depend on them are inspiring.”
The FSC US Board of Directors is the organization’s highest governing authority and consists of up to fifteen individuals, all of whom are U.S.-based FSC members. Each of the three FSC chambers (Social, Economic and Environmental) has three representatives which are elected by US-based FSC members and serve for a three-year term. An additional two individuals may be appointed in each chamber by the Board, typically to ensure a full range of perspectives and expertise.
The Board leads the development of national strategy, oversees the chief executive, ensures effective financial oversight, and approves the National Forest Stewardship Standard and Controlled Wood National Risk Assessment. In addition, the Board plays an important role in FSC globally, working on issues affecting the broader FSC community.
Derik Frederiksen, President of FSC US, addressed assembled logger from across the nation at the American Loggers Council (ALC) Annual Meeting in Newry, ME on Oct. 5, and spoke highly of Wright.
“Ted is a champion for you on the FSC Board of directors,” Frederiksen said. “Continue to voice your concerns through him and we will do our best to incorporate them and address them.”
Wright grew up in Aroostook County on a potato farm in Littleton, ME and began harvesting wood from the farm and discovered he really enjoyed the work. He attended the University of Maine at Fort Kent and graduated in 2005 with an Associate’s degree in Applied Forest Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies, then went to work at Louisiana-Pacific in Houlton for a year. He then took a job at the Region Two School of Applied Technology in Houlton teaching in their Wood Harvesting/Forestry program for seven years before accepting the TCNEF Director’s job in the fall of 2015. He and his wife, Maggie, and children, Madigan and Ben, live in Brunswick, Maine.
The Northeast Master Logger Certification Program was created in 2000 by the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine (PLC) as the first in the world point-of-harvest certification program, offering third party independent certification of logging companies’ harvesting practices. In 2003, PLC created TCNEF to administer the program with the broader goal of “enhancing the health of working forest ecosystems through exceptional accountability” throughout the Northern Forest region.
In addition to administering the Master Logger program, TCNEF administers an FSC®-certified group of family forest landowners throughout New England and New York. Under this arrangement forest landowners can inexpensively gain access to FSC® group certification. TCNEF is the administrative body that holds the FSC certificate and has overall responsibility for compliance with the FSC® Northeast Regional Standard.
TCNEF also administers an FSC®-certified group of Chain of Custody that provides an information trail, established and audited according to rules set by FSC, for Master Loggers and wood products companies to ensure that wood comes from certified forests.
For more information on the Master Logger program or TCNEF, contact Ted Wright at (207) 688-8195 opt. 2 or executivedirector@tcnef.org. Additional information is also available at http://masterloggercertification.com
About the Forest Stewardship Council
The Forest Stewardship Council, the world’s most trusted forest certification, is an independent nonprofit organization that promotes environmentally sound, socially beneficial, and economically prosperous management of forests. FSC was created in 1993 to set the standards by which forests are certified, offering assurance to consumers and businesses that the wood products they buy originate from well-managed forests. More than 5,000 companies and nearly 160 million acres of forestland are certified under FSC in the United States and Canada. For more information visit www.fsc.org.
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