Cultural studies of environmental regulation by definition address the material particularities of global connection: emergent cultural forms - including forest destruction and environmental advocacy - are persistent but unpredictable effects of global encounters across difference (Tsing 2005:3). This dissertation explores one such space of encounter:the virtual negotiating table where loggers, environmentalists, and other affiliates of the Forest Stewardship Council (including one lone indigenous Mapuche representative) came together to hammer out the criteria and indicators that would define sustainable forestry in Chile. Labeling schemes like FSC are generally described as "values-based" and "stakeholder-driven", but the space of encounter at the negotiating table, and the values represented there, are neither transparent nor pre-determined. Rather, they are the dependent outcome, shaped by power relations and institutional constraints. In other words, the "goodness" of "good wood" is made, not grown. As a result, this research attempts to make sense of the label (the FSC logo") and the values it represents (sustainable forestry) ethnographically, processually and qualitatively. Without assessing FSC-Chile in terms of the biodiversity it conserves or the sustainable income for local business it generates, it is still possible and necessary to evaluate its cultural politics. The conversations and interactions documented herein offer suggestive materials for evaluating the meanings associated with certification as it defines itself into being in Chile, and for speculating about its ethical implications and possibilities.