Thirty five people, drawn from Government, NGOs, commercial companies, community organisations and intergovernmental organisations, participated in the workshop, which was organised by the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International, a regional network of NGOs under their EU funded regional eco-forestry project. Funding for the workshop came from ICCO, The Commonwealth Foundation, the UK Soil Association, PIF&TSP and the Pacific German Regional Forestry Project. The Pacific Island countries represented were Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Other participants came from Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom. The workshop was held in Gizo, Western Province, Solomon Islands from the in November 1998 since there is considerable experience with certification in the Solomon Islands. The venue was relatively close to both Solomon Western Islands Fair Trade (SWIFT) and Kolombangara Forest Products Limited (KFPL) who hosted field visits. These showed how certification had been implemented in two very different organisations: a collective of community based timber producers managing natural forest and a large commercial plantation respectively.