Illegal logging still an issue, despite vigorous certification programmes

At the beginning of the year it was reported by conservation body, WWF, that the UK was the world’s third largest importer of illegal timber.

More recently, it was reported on Channel 4 news that China is trading in timber that has been logged in parts of south-east Asia and Africa where timber laws are lax. It seems illegal logging is still a very prominent issue across the globe, one that if left unresolved could lead to serious shortages of timber and huge environmental costs. When it comes to timber, the flooring industry puts its trust in programmes backed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FCS) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) labels, found on product packaging. These are processes for auditing forests to ensure that they are responsibly and sustainably managed according to an agreed set of principles and criteria. Forests that are certified have common objectives; the frequency of planting must exceed that of harvest, and wildlife as well as indigenous people must be protected through the careful management of their natural environment.

Once logged, the timber is then followed by a chain of paper work, known as the ‘Chain of Custody’. Every stage in this chain, from transport to sawmill, to manufacturer and merchant, has to have a process that identifies the certified wood through to its final sale. This process is independently audited by a third party such as BM TRADA. Despite a better response to these issues in recent months from the Government, WWF are not satisfied with the efforts of EU governments to control timber logging. The organisation released a statement on April 30, calling for new legislation to be developed to outlaw the import of illegal timber and wood products into the EU. Beatrix Richards, head of forests at WWF-UK, said: "Four years ago the EU introduced a flagship Action Plan designed to tackle the growing problem of illegal logging. Today very little progress has been made and this is down to individual governments who have dragged their heels on this issue.
"Illegal logging is a huge environmental, social and economic problem which often deprives local communities who rely on forests for their livelihoods. The EU, as a massive consumer of timber, has a key role to play in tackling the illegal element of the trade."

Greenpeace agree that not enough has been done to resolve these problems. At the beginning of this year its spokesman, Ben Ayliffe, said: "The UK government has refused to bring in laws to ban the import of illegal timber into the UK. Instead it has approved various timber certification schemes that supposedly guarantee ‘legal and sustainable’ timber, but in reality are nothing more than a licence to wreck ancient forests."

Finnforest is part of the tenth largest forest industry group in the world. The company use the FSC scheme to monitor and control its wood supplies. Rachel Butler, environmental manager at Finnforest believes the systems in place offer good assurance to customers.

She said: "Like any system there will be loop holes, but the measures continue to improve as those loop holes are found. The systems in place are very good at guaranteeing to the customer that there is some sort of protection to the forest where their timber is from.

"The FSC scheme is set up and designed to cover all aspects of certification and they have wide stakeholder engagement. Any issues are found and dealt with." In response to a ban on importing illegal wood Butler does not think it would be manageable to do so. "There is no proof of ownership to establish where it came from, therefore no proof that it has been stolen. You can’t prove it and that’s why it has been deemed unworkable," she said.
Butler maintains that the best way for a contractor to ensure the wood flooring they are using is from a legal source is to use the methods that currently exist and buy only certified wood.
She said: "Each stage of the ‘Chain of Custody’ is audited, so if I buy timber from a forest in Malaysia I can guarantee that the auditors there have checked where the wood is from. It doesn’t tell you what tree stump the log is from but it will tell you which forest. It’s like if you had an audit on Brussels sprouts, you wouldn’t know which row it came from but you would know which field."
There are obvious difficulties in making it illegal to import timber from unmanaged sources. Being able to identify where the wood actually came from could be an impossible task.

However, it is important to be aware that these issues are ongoing. While checking all timber for a ‘Chain of Custody’ certificate is good practice and generally a good assurance of the timber source, keeping an eye on any changes in the chain and reporting any suspicion over wood that you receive is imperative to ensure the systems in place continue to work and the trade of illegal wood dies out before our forests do.