Arlington, Va. — The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) program recorded substantial growth in 2007, including a 750 percent increase in locations with SFI chain-of-custody certification that can track products from certified forests. Chain-of-custody certification means a company has a tracking system in place that identifies the amount of certified, uncertified and recycled content in the forest products it buys, uses or sells.

There was also an increase in the amount of SFI-certified lands — to 143.7 million acres (58.1 million hectares) at the end of 2007 from 135 million acres (54.6 million hectares) at the end of 2006. Visit www.sfiprogram.org for more information.