Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) is situated 185km north of San Francisco, California, in the northern pacific coastal redwoods region of the US. This region, which includes Humboldt and Mendocino counties, was the site of iconic confrontations between forest conservation advocates and timber companies in the 1990s. During this time, the region experienced waves of civil disobedience such as 1990’s “Redwood Summer.” Tensions in the region were peppered with incidences of violence, such as the death of an activist and the car bombing of Mendocino-based Earth First activist Judi Bari. Today, in Mendocino, MRC operates with a strong social licence, and has a robust dialogue with stakeholders that did not exist previously. MRC’s implementation of FSC Principles and Criteria (P&C) today represents a positive example of the FSC at work. Especially notable are MRC’s culture of proactive stakeholder engagement, particularly of local stakeholders, and the company’s high levels of transparency. In 1998, when MRC took over 92,592 hectares of land that had been overlogged by its previous landowner, did not have a forest certification. MRC did not earn its FSC certificate during the first application in 1999, but after MRC addressed outstanding issues, it became certified in 2000. Since 2000, MRC has maintained its certificates and used two different auditors, Rainforest Alliance and Scientific Certification Systems (SCS).

Type of Case
Printed publication (book, sourcebook, journal article…)

Publisher
Greenpeace

Region
Americas

Biome
Temperate

Forest Type
All forest types (natural and planted)

Primary Designated Function
Production