The Montréal Process

The Montréal Process Working Group was formed in 1994 as a bold, intergovernmental response to the pressing need for sustainable forest management. One of its first tasks was to develop and implement internationally agreed-upon criteria and indicators for the conservation and sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests.

Four people standing in a forest. Forest stream. Four men packing tree seedlings. Mountain forest. Woman cooking with a wood fired stove. Forest road. Bird. View up into a forest canopy. Two men and a woman looking at an aerial photo on the back of a pickup truck. Forest. Sierra Madre forest. Young pine plantation.

The Montréal Process countries are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russian Federation, United States of America, and Uruguay. These member countries contain 83% of the world’s temperate and boreal forests, 49% of the world’s forests, 33% of the world’s population, and are the source of 40% of the world’s wood production.

Through the Montréal Process, member countries continue to make a voluntary commitment to work alongside each other to further the sustainable management of their forests and to create a pathway for collaboration and capacity building.

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