Often, the only forest management advice a family forest owner receives is from a logger who approaches the landowner to procure wood.  While many loggers are very experienced and have a professional approach to wood procurement, the Minnesota Logger Education Program (MLEP) believes that a well-trained and experienced logger with a broader vision of forestry can provide family forest landowners with sustainable forest management information.  MLEP developed the Minnesota Master Logger Certification (MMLC) program to address the challenge of providing certified fiber from family forestlands to the marketplace.

Minnesota Master Logger Certification, administered through the MLEP, is a performance-based program for loggers that recognizes training, experience, and the application of sound business and sustainable logging practices.  Logger certification has been recognized as a way to independently verify the harvest, safety and business practices of participant loggers against specific standards designed to ensure forest are managed and harvested responsibly.  MMLC has been endorsed by Time Inc. as meeting the requirements of their Certified Sustainable Forestry program. 

Many Minnesota loggers already meet the standards and criteria required for certification, but they do not have a way to authenticate that their customers.    Loggers who become certified are able to provide certified wood to the market place.  This means loggers and mills in Minnesota will be in a strong position to provide certified wood from family forestlands to customers like Time Inc. that require certified wood in the products they purchase.

A working group representing the broad forestry community was established in early 2005 to develop the MMLC program and its policies, as well as set-up the certifying board.  The program is comprised of eight areas of responsibility such as “Protection of Water Quality and Soils”, “Adherence to Site Specific Harvest and Management Plans” and “Compliance with Regulations Applicable to Logging Operations.”  Each responsibility area includes measurable performance standards and practices.

A logger participating in the program undergoes a third-party audit of his or her business practices and harvest sites.  Independent auditors who have been trained on the MMLC standard conduct field audits on a sample of sites the applicant has harvested within the last 12 months.  The logging business and harvest practices are evaluated against 138 practices in eight major areas of responsibility.  Based on their findings, the auditors provide the certifying board a recommendation for or against certification.  An eight member certifying board, which represents a broad range of forestry interests, reviews the audits and recommendations and makes the final determination on whether the applicant’s business can be certified.  To be certified, a logging business must pass all eight areas of the MMLC standard on all audited sites.

Once a logging business is certified, the certification status is good until the next recertification audit which will occur within five years.  During any given year, the certified business may be randomly selected for recertification.  As each year passes, the probability that the business will be selected for recertification increases.  No Minnesota Certified Master Logger will go longer than five years without being recertified.