Stewardship Seal
Dog-Hunted. Environmentally Stewarded.
The NATDA Stewardship Seal certifies a harvest lot — not a handler. It assures buyers that a specific batch of truffles was located exclusively by a scent-trained dog and can be traced from ground to sale.
Why Harvest Method Matters
Raking — dragging a tool indiscriminately through the forest floor — pulls ripe and unripe truffles alike, tears the underlying mycelial network, damages host tree roots, and on sloped ground causes erosion that compounds for years. A site raked hard enough can stop producing at commercially viable levels altogether. Dog-guided harvest solves the indiscriminate-collection problem: a trained dog indicates only ripe, aromatic truffles and leaves the rest to mature. But dog hunting is not automatically harmless either. Heavy, repeated foot traffic across the same productive patch causes compacted soil, disrupted mycorrhizal networks, and declining yields. A credible standard has to address both mechanisms.
Two Separate Credentials
Credential 1
Dog & Handler Certification
Certifies who is qualified to hunt. The WTD, CTD, and MTD credentials evaluate the team's skill, reliability, and professional conduct.
View WTD / CTD / MTDCredential 2 — This Page
Stewardship Seal
Certifies how a specific harvest was actually conducted. Issued per lot — each batch sold or shipped carries a unique Seal number traceable from ground to sale.
Scope of Certification
Orchard Harvest
Cultivated truffières — established client orchards and NATDA member farms. Core standard applies in full.
Wild Harvest
Non-cultivated, forest-foraged ground. Core standard applies, plus a stricter site-rotation cap to account for cumulative foot-traffic impact.
The Standard — Four Pillars
Every Seal-certified harvest lot must satisfy all four pillars without exception.
Harvest Method
Dog indication only. Excavation by handler hand tool or supervised digging by the dog, limited to the depth needed to reach the specimen. No rakes or mechanical soil disruption. No mouthing of truffle by dog. Immature or unripe truffles left in ground.
Site Stewardship & Restoration
Duff and soil replaced after every dig. Visit frequency capped per site per season. Site rotation logged — wild-harvest ground held to a tighter cap given cumulative foot-traffic impact.
Chain of Custody
Every lot is assigned a Seal number at the time of dig, logging the date, handler and dog ID, species, and weight. Precise site location is retained privately by the handler as an audit-ready record — not centrally logged — to protect confidential or private landholding sites.
Handler Certification & Audit Compliance
Issuing handler must hold an active NATDA credential and agree to Stewardship Seal audit terms, including producing harvest records if selected for audit. Audited handlers provide geo-pinned, timestamped photo evidence of the dig site within a set window.
"The Seal isn't a rule anyone has to follow. It's a claim anyone can choose to earn."
How the Seal Works
Issued per harvest lot
Each batch sold or shipped carries a unique Seal number — mirroring the CTD registry model. The Seal travels with the truffles, not the handler.
Audit-based enforcement
NATDA audits a random sample of active handlers each season, plus any handler flagged by a buyer complaint or suspected violation. Enforcement rests on certifying the harvester, not observing every harvest.
Privacy-first record keeping
Location data is retained only for audited records, never published, and deleted after a defined retention period. A smartphone with location services is sufficient — no dedicated app required.
Trademark protection
The Seal carries no legal mandate — adoption is driven by market demand. The one piece of hard enforcement available is trademark protection against falsely claiming the mark without having earned it.
Governance
Administered by the NATDA board under the same benefit-corporation accountability structure as the dog credential. The Seal is not a rule anyone has to follow — it is a claim anyone can choose to earn. As buyers and diners come to understand what a dog-only, non-destructive harvest actually requires, the Seal's absence becomes informative in its own right.
Earn the Stewardship Seal
Handlers holding an active NATDA credential are eligible to apply. Contact us to learn about current requirements and the application process.