OREANDA-NEWS. September 26, 2012. RusForest AB (publ) (“RusForest” or the “Company”), a Swedish forestry company with operations in Russia, announces completion of the certification process for the majority of its operations according to Forest Stewardship Council (“FSC”) rules. FSC certificates for the Company’s operations were issued by Rainforest Alliance, the global leader in forest certification, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network.

The Company’s harvesting units located in the Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions of Russia received the FSC forest management and chain of custody certificates. These certificates cover forest leases of 2.6 million hectares with an annual allowable cut (“AAC”) of approximately 3.4 million cubic meters, representing more than 90 percent of the Company’s AAC.

RusForest’s main sawmills (Arkhangelsk LDK-3, Magistralny and Boguchany) and its wholesale export operation (RusForest Trade House) also received the chain of custody certificates for their products and raw materials.

RusForest pays special attention to the social and environmental impacts of its business activities in Russia. The Company maintains highly valuable forests in close cooperation with local communities and leading environmental organizations such as WWF and Greenpeace.

Garrett Soden, the Company’s CEO, commented, “The FSC certification of our timber leasing, harvesting and sawmilling operations is a key step towards increasing price realizations for our sawnwood products. Certification together with our recent sawmill investments will allow us to expand our sales channels and reach higher value markets like Europe and Japan.”