Natural, warm and versatile, wood has always been a building and design staple. It’s extremely versatile and has many environmental positives. But it’s important to carefully check the eco credentials of anything made from wood to keep our ancient forests and habitats alive.
Who doesn’t love wood? With its natural grain and rich colours, it has a unique beauty. Sadly, though, much of the wood used in construction and furniture is from irreplaceable virgin forest, so it’s important to be fully informed about what you’re buying.
Wood is an extremely versatile material, with a huge range of uses in construction and finishing. From an ecological point of view, one of its strongest credentials is that it derives from a renewable, living source. If sourced from a sustainably managed resource, it’s ‘carbon neutral’ which means it naturally reduces levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide as it grows. In addition, wood is strong, durable and hardwearing; it’s biodegradable and lends itself easily to reuse and recycling.
Yet, despite these strong environmental positives, the use of wood as a material poses many problems. While trees are renewable, ancient forests are not, with different species of tree growing and maturing and different rates. Hardwoods are typically slower to mature than their softwood cousins, taking hundreds if not thousands of years to reach maturity. Deforestation and over-harvesting have endangered certain species and damaged natural habitats, in some cases irrevocably. In recent years, much attention has been focused on the threat to tropical rainforests, especially in the Amazon Basin and Indonesia, where rapacious, often illegal logging and land clearance have endangered many hardwood species including mahogany, teak, iroko and keruing.
There has been an equal threat to the world’s ancient forests in cold or temperate regions, areas of mixed indigenous woodland that have taken generations to mature and that support a diverse ecology of plants and wildlife. It’s estimated that less than 20% of these old-growth forests may now remain; that figure is a mere 10% in the case of the United States where old growth species such as redwood and western red cedar are becoming rare. Thanks to reforestation schemes in many parts of Europe, for example, there are now more trees than there were a century ago, but there is still a need for responsible forestry management. Single-species monoculture plantations of softwood, which discourage biodiversity and are more prone to disease, are no substitute for native woodland.
And there are other causes for concern too. Timber is often transported over vast distances, which adds to its environmental impact.
Manufactured wood products, ranging from plywood and particleboard to MDF, are a very efficient way of using timber, because they use waste wood and shavings. However, these products commonly contain urea-formaldehyde binders, which are a proven health risk. Fortunately formaldehyde free alternatives are now coming onto the market.
The Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international body that not only monitors forestry projects worldwide to ensure that they are operating in a fully sustainable manner, but also seeks to balance ecological considerations with the needs of local communities. FSC-certified foresters and manufacturers meet a set of criteria designed to promote biological diversity and protect native woodlands.
North American Western Red Cedar or Western Hemlock North America has already lost much of its ancient forest. Industrial logging threatens large parts of what remains in both Canada and the USA. The habitats of the Grizzly and Black Bears, White Spirit Bears and a number of bird species and wild salmon runs are threatened by the harvesting of the Western Red Cedar and the Western Hemlock. However, progress is being made and large areas have now come under the protection of responsible foresters. Look out for the FSC logo and CPET http://www.proforest.net/cpet
(Avoid using: Asian Mahogany, Teak, Kwila, Bangkirai, Ramin, and Meranti)
South East Asia is a major producer of timber and wood products, though its forests are rapidly disappearing. Each year in Indonesia, an area the size of Wales is destroyed – the highest rate of forest loss in the world. Indonesia has more species threatened with distinction than anywhere else on Earth. If the current rates of logging continue, the ancient lowland forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan will be eradicated by 2010, together with hope for the remaining orang-utans and other rare species such as the sunbear, the worlds smallest bear.
In 2004, an estimated 76% of logging in Indonesia was illegal. Profits from the industrial timber trade in Indonesia flow to the military, corrupt officials, illegal timber barons and international traders.
We do not accept reclaimed teak in our product range for the reason that there is a finite resource of anything reclaimed, and we do not wish to encourage the ongoing use of that timber.
(Avoid using: Brazilian Cedar, Brazilian Mahogany, Greenheart) The Amazon basin supports almost half of all known land-based species. However, it also has one of the world’s highest rates of forest destruction and the pace is increasing. Between Aug 2003 and Jul 2004 alone, 27,200kmsq of Brazil’s rainforest were destroyed. More than 20 million people live in and are dependent upon the Amazon forest. The lives and cultural identity of indigenous communities are seriously threatened by logging companies. Due to deforestation, more than 87 indigenous cultures have been lost in Brazil alone. Up to 90% of timber from the Brazilian Amazon is logged illegally.
(Avoid using:African Walnut, African Teak, Sapele Mahogany, Wenge, Utile/Sipo Mahogany, Khaya Mahogany, Ekki/Azobe)
The rainforests of West and Central Africa are home to an astonishing number of animal and plant species. They are critical to the survival of three of our closest animal relatives, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the bonobo, all of which are endangered.
Millions of hectares of African rainforest have been lost in the last 30 years and now logging operations are expanding into the Congo Basin which is home to around 12 million forest-dwelling people, including pygmies.
Illegal logging is rampant and corruption is widespread. Protection of the forest areas is largely inadequate.