ABSTRACT
To establish a basis for the ongoing debate on forest certification, it is important to review some of the historical factors related to the growth of public environmental awareness. In order to make sense of the tremendous amount of information on this topic, the material will not be discussed in a continuous chronological sequence. It is hoped that the format used in this analysis will provide a more useful understanding of the issues relevant to this discussion. This analysis should be useful to those individuals who are already familiar with forest certification and for those who have more recently been confronted with this topic.
