Why is Certification Needed?

Certification is needed to give clients, customers, and/or the general public assurances that the person performing the job has the education/training/skill level/experience to do the job correctly.  Many loggers already meet all the standards/criteria of the MLC program. The problem is they don’t have any way to prove it. Some can easily meet it with slight modifications to their operations, while others will either not be able to meet the standards or will not care to.

Some will say, “Many of the standards are already law, why do they need to be restated in a certification program?” Many laws and regulations are not enforced, or enforced so infrequently that they are ignored. The result is that those who follow the law, often at increased cost to their businesses, compete with those who choose to ignore certain laws. By making existing laws and regulations part of the MLC performance standards, there is more incentive to comply with these laws and regulations.