Complaint and Legal Mass Timber Products
The use of sustainably managed plantation timber in the production of mass timber products is vitally important. Independent verification schemes aim to establish the origin and sustainability of timber supplies around the world. There are indications that illegal logging is on the decline, especially in countries likeBrazil and Indonesia, but it remains a significant problem. Therefore, it is critical that policy-makers learn from the past and take affirmative action to alter the nature of the problem.
There are two global sustainable forest management certifications designed to attest to the legitimacy of sustainably produced timber – the Forest StewardshipCouncil (FSC) scheme and the PEFC. Both systems have the ultimate goal of promoting sustainable forest management and ensuring that illegally harvested timber does not enter the supply chain in Australia. The FSC program originally targeted large-scale forest organisations, whereas the PEFC was established by industry associations to foster the interests of small scale private forest owners. The FSC scheme provides an equal footing to the economic, social and environmental sectors and their interests, whereas the PEFC provides forest owners with the final say in policy making debates, leading to criticism concerning a lack of respect for environmental concerns and a claimed focus on economic gains for stakeholders. More recently, similar criticism has been levelled at the FSC. The requirement for the supply chain to hold certification under both schemes in order to trade in sustainable timber credits can be an imposition on business in terms of auditing costs, staffing the quality assurance program and registration for trademark usage, etc.