Growth Characteristics and Fruit Quality in the Hydroponic Cultivation of Blueberries

During the 1990s, the sustainable management of the forests issue has begun to attract the world’s attention, therefore, some forest management certifications started and began to spread to worldwide. In 1999, for the first time, in Maine, the USA, there was another kind of third party certification program called Maine Master Logger Certification (MLC) being established for loggers by local loggers. This program is not focus on the forest management but on the environmental performances of the loggers in the woods. After more than a decade this program has been raising the bar of the whole industry and inspiring the establishments of the same kind of programs in nearly 30 states. By interviewing the key men involved in the creation of this program and the organization who conducts this program nowadays, this study is to clarify the development of this program and to find out the factors which supported it. The author concludes that: 1Loggers, the logging professionals, eagerly wanted to create an evaluating system to evaluate their works in the woods by themselves, and that was the motivation to start this program. 2With the growing environmental awareness, some certified forest products began to own their markets, and these kind of markets helped this program spread. 3There are plenty of small scale private owned lands in Maine, most of which are not certified by any forest management certification. To these land owners, the MLC plays a role as a substitute for forest management certifications to protect the environment, and this helps the program spread too. A1