GEBIETSEIGENE GEHÖLZE inspected in accordance with the ZgG standard

ZgG stands for "Zertifizierungsgemeinschaft gebietseigene Gehölze (Native Trees Certification Association)" and is an amalgamation of nurseries that produce and trade in native trees.

The legislator demands that no foreign trees shall be planted in the wild without approval. In the future, tree species that are designated for the wild must be native and must be associated with one of the six distribution areas in Germany. This is based on § 40 paragraph 4 in the BNatSchG (Federal Act for the Protection of Nature). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety (BMU) formulated how this requirement can be implemented in its "Guideline on the use of native trees".

Based on this guideline, SGS-TÜV Saar GmbH developed a standard together with the Bund deutscher Baumschulen e.V. (Association of German Nurseries). The standard consistently and uniformly implements the content of the guideline across the country and is reviewed as part of an audit by independent SGS-TÜV Saar auditors.

The audits are focussed on the following three points:

• Review of the plausibility of delivery notes, cultivation registers, district files and other documents in order to ensure a seamless traceability of the native trees from seedling to sale.
• Visual controls in the field and in storage/logging in order to check the data from the documents.
• The universal use of the EC plant ID number on delivery labels and papers of the operation is checked for clear identification of the operation.

Both seed and production operations as well as commercial undertakings can be certified, i.e. the entire production chain from seedling to supply. The specific requirements of the operations are considered by the audit questionnaire and identified as the corresponding scope of certification on the certificate.