The Sustainable Forestry Initiative kicked off its 2026 annual conference — titled The Next Ring of Growth — in Montréal yesterday. Chief Stephen Angus McComber, Ratsénhaienhs of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, opened with a traditional welcome on Haudenosaunee territory, which encompasses southwestern Quebec and upper New York State. Drawing on Mohawk teachings, Chief McComber described trees as the source of the air that sustains all life and spoke to the relationship between people and the forest as understood through those teachings.

Kathy Abusow

SFI CEO Kathy Abusow — in her final conference address in that role — walked through the milestones she described as the rings of growth that have defined the organization since the SFI standard was established in 1995. The certified footprint has grown from 150 million acres in 2007 to 350 million today. The Conservation and Community Grant program, launched in 2010, has produced 74 grants totalling $4.8 million and built what Abusow described as a durable network of conservation collaborators from what had been an adversarial relationship with critics. The 2015 standards revision elevated Indigenous rights recognition to a full strategic objective — the only such elevation in SFI’s non-profit history until climate smart forestry was added in 2022. Since then, 57,000 people within SFI-certified organizations have completed training in Indigenous rights recognition and relationship building, and 65 Indigenous communities have achieved certification. The acquisition of Project Learning Tree in 2017 extended SFI’s reach into education; a Canadian counterpart was established the same year. To date, 8,700 youth have been connected to careers in the forest and conservation sector through those programs — 55% women, 24% Indigenous.

Dan Lambe, Chief Executive of the Arbor Day Foundation and SFI Board Chair, spoke to the theme of legacy, framing it as something built through daily choices — every tree planted, every colleague encouraged, every relationship formed. Drawing on the life of Dr. Jane Goodall, whose celebration of life he attended last November, Lambe suggested that lasting legacies are as much about the culture shaped in doing the work as about the outcomes the work produces.

Catherine Grenier, President and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada and a member of the SFI board, spoke to what she described as a gap between the conservation value the forestry sector is already delivering and the recognition and financial return it receives for that work. She outlined three pathways she said are available now. The first is Other Effective Conservation Measures, or OECMs — a formal mechanism that recognizes land managed for conservation outcomes even where production continues. NCC’s work with J.D. Irving Limited in New Brunswick, covering nearly 10,000 hectares of working Acadian forest, was the first such recognition granted to a Canadian forestry company.

The second pathway is carbon revenue, available both through land transitioning out of active harvest and through changes in harvest practices that retain more carbon in the forest over time without removing land from production. NCC’s recent partnership with Domtar on 145,000 hectares of intact boreal forest in northern Ontario — described as the largest private land conservation deal in Canadian history — was offered as an example. The third pathway involves spatial data and mapping tools that allow organizations to measure and demonstrate conservation outcomes on the ground, a subject Grenier previewed ahead of a dedicated panel the following day. Grenier said the sector is already delivering these outcomes and that the opportunity lies in connecting that work to formal recognition and revenue.

Drafted with the assistance of digital tools to streamline the process