Our Pacific neighbours are turning into wastelands. Papua New Guinea, has the world’s third largest tropical rainforest. These complex, rich, and beautiful forests are the biggest remaining tropical rainforest in the Asia Pacific region.
Since 2009, an estimated 6.3 million cubic metres of rainforest logs worth more than $1.5 billion dollars have been exported under the Special Agriculture and Business Leases system.
The Environmental Justice Atlas states that PNG has lost over 60 per cent of its forest cover to logging, with claims that up to 70 per cent of logging is illegal.
The Solomon Islands exported more than 3 million cubic metres of logs in 2017, more than 19 times a conservative estimate of the annual sustainable harvest, according to Global Witness.
A report by the Solomon Islands Ministry of Finance found that if logging continues at its current pace then the nation’s forests will have vanished by 2036.
Most Australians are horrified and saddened to learn of this, and would never support this widespread and irrevocable destruction.
Yet, it is equally likely that there are pieces of furniture or other timber products in their home that are the direct result of this illegal and corrupt ruin of our Pacific neighbours.
Hoodwinked
“There is a big greenwashing problem worldwide,” said Mark Thomson, the founder of Eco-Effective Solutions, lecturer at Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland, and an independent director of Responsible Wood.
“The vested interests in greenwashing are really significant as people are not understanding the claims that are made.
“Unsustainable timber is often being marketed to consumers,” Mr Thomson said.
As with many environmental disasters, the onus for saving tropical rainforests is put on the last person in the buying chain – the consumer.
But if consumers are not provided the correct information then how can they buy sustainably sourced timber and timber products?
According to Choice, the majority of Australians they surveyed said, “it’s important to them that the products they purchase are environmentally friendly”.
That is difficult, though, when there are “57 different labels in use in Australia, as well as various international rankings and ratings, purchasing guides, certificates and certifications”, Choice states.
Choice found that three out of five people said that it’s not easy to make environmental choices about products, with unclear or confusing labels listed as one of the main reasons for the difficulty.
Timber certification from sustainably managed forests
“There are only two global certification programs that can be trusted to verify sustainably supplied timber, as they provide chain of custody certification,” Mr Thomson said.
“One is FSC: The Forest Stewardship Council and the other is PEFC – Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification.”
According to their website, timber with the FSC stamp of approval shows that it comes from a forest that is being managed in a way that “preserves biological diversity and benefits the lives of local people and workers, while ensuring it sustains economic viability”.
The FSC chain of custody certification “verifies that FSC-certified material has been identified and separated from non-certified and uncontrolled material as it makes its way along the supply chain from the forest to the market,” the website states.
And further: “Any company involved in the processing or transformation of FSC-certified products (e.g. manufacturing, repackaging, pack-splitting, relabelling, cutting to size or adding other forest-based components to the product) but be FSC certified in order to apply an FSC label to their products and/or sell them with an FSC claim. “But one must check and understand understand the type of FSC certificate to ensure a chain of custody is current.”
The PEFC scheme means: “Our certification scheme ensures forest products are sourced sustainably – socially just, ecologically sound and economically viable,” the Responsible Wood website states.“Certification to the Responsible Wood and PEFC certification schemes provides consumers with confidence that products with our labels have met strict requirements for timber harvesting and the sourcing of wood products.”
Key to both these full schemes is the chain of custody certification that requires integrity at every level, from the management of forest ecosystems to all the steps along the way, from felling to transport, to export, manufacture, and imports.
But most of the timber felled and used in the world is not harvested under these schemes.
“Timber that is certified with either of these [FSC and PEFC] is less than 20 per cent of domestic timber used worldwide,” Mr Thomson said.
“That means that over 80 per cent of the wood used for domestic purposes does not have chain of custody certification and therefore has no guarantee that it was sustainably sourced.”