An even more flawed certification system is the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA). It was started in 1995 by the timber association whose members control 56 million acres in the US, which is 90 ercent of industrial timberland, 84 percent of paper production and 50 percent of solid wood production in the USA (Heaton, 2001). For many observers, the SFIs certification amounts to nothing more than greenwashing (or environmental PR) since its standards are so weak that it had (by 2001) certified over 50 million acres in the USnearly all of the American industrys timber basealong with millions of acres in Canada (NRDC, 2002). Others feel that the programme is a step by mainstream industry to gradually improving forest practices (Kiekens, 1999), and perhaps a step to more demanding standards.