Buying wood products

When we buy timber and wood-based products we rarely think of the country of origin. Nor do we think of the impacts our purchases may have on the forests the timber comes from.

Michael O'Muircheartaigh quantified the scale of deforestation in a way which most of us could understand when he said...

It's an astonishing fact that an area of rainforest the size of Croke Park disappears every second. Illegal logging is often seen as one of the driving forces. It's time to play fair and give people in developing countries a fair deal and a fair price for their forest resources.
Micheal O Muircheartaigh,
Sports Commentator, Teacher,
Author and Patron of Just Forests

Did You Know...

Every second of every day, an area of rainforest the size of Croke Park football field is chopped down. That's 86,400 Croke Park pitches of rainforest per day, or over 31 million Croke Park pitches of rainforest lost each year.
Forest Facts from United Nations Environment Programme.

Consider this..
If I hire a couple of blokes with automatic weapons, break into a garden center in Dublin, and take, at gun-point, fifty prize roses, I have committed a crime. If I drive those roses to Belfast and sell them to 'Don't Care DIY Store', 'Don't Care' doesn't own them, and if it sells them suspecting I stole them, 'Don't Care DIY Store' has also committed a crime.

If a logging contractor does the same thing in Tanzania, or the Amazon, and gets the wood to Ireland, they're home free. Same thing if they sell the logs in China and the mahogany, teak or bintangor, ends up in furniture in the 'Furniture Heaven Shop' in Tullamore or plywood in 'McCarenot Timber Supplies' in Bray. Illegal trade is one of the huge stories being ignored by industry, politicians, many governments and the mainstream media. More than half of all tropical deforestation is estimated to be the result of illegal logging, and *deforestation is causing 20% of total global CO2 emissions.

Deforestation - Emissions from deforestation are very significant globally. Independent estimates of the annual emissions from deforestation are put at more than 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, greater than that produced by the whole of the global transport sector. These emissions could potentially be cut significantly fairly quickly – no new technology has to be developed – although considerable challenges have to be addressed, as discussed below.
Extract from chapter 25 of the STERN Review - The Economics of Climate Change

Illegal logging and the international trade in illegally logged timber is a major problem for many timber-producing countries in the developing world. It causes environmental damage, costs governments billions of dollars in lost revenue, promotes corruption, undermines the rule of law and good governance and funds armed conflict. It retards sustainable development in some of the poorest countries of the world. Consumer countries like Ireland contribute to these problems by importing timber and wood products without ensuring that they are legally sourced. While in recent years, producer and consumer countries alike have paid increasing attention to illegal logging the problem is still widespread.

Throughout the world, ancient forests are in crisis. Many of the plants and animals that live in these forests face extinction. Many of the peoples and cultures who depend on these forests for their way of life are under threat through deforestation and illegal logging.

Welcome to the FSC Claims Forum.
This forum has been established for FSC stakeholders to learn about, and provide input into, the development of the FSC Online Claims Platform (OCP).