San Francisco — Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has resigned from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), ending more than 30 years of membership in the world’s most widely recognized forestry certification system. RAN says the FSC’s certification label is failing to provide credible assurances of responsible forest management. RAN was a founding member of FSC in 1993 and remained engaged for decades because of the need for a robust third party verified forestry certification scheme. The FSC previously set the gold standard for responsible forestry in a market flooded by timber and paper products bearing logos of weaker forest certification schemes such as the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. But the organization says recent decisions by the FSC have fatally undermined its credibility.