Sir, The Fianna Fail party's recently launched position pap Our Environment Our Future is most welcome. I am encouraged by the statement on Eco-labelling in the section "Consumers and the Environment", which says "The development and implementation of an Irish Eco-label will be speeded up. One example would be the labelling of wood products."
From here on, in order for any labelling scheme (whether on food or wood) to give the guarantees that consumers demand, it must be independently certified and be open and not just left to the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI), the Department of the Environment and Forbairt, as suggested in the document. All stakeholders, including social/environment and consumer groups, must be included.
Irish Woodworkers for Africa (IWFA) is pro-wood. The beauty, versatility and environmental qualities of wood are unsurpassed by any other construction material. So let us use this wonderful raw material but for God's sake let us know where it comes from.
For a number of years, IWFA has been highlighting the need for the Irish Timber Traders Association (ITTA) and the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) to deal only in wood independently certified as coming from properly managed forests, i.e. forest practices that are economically viable, socially beneficial and environmentally appropriate. The ITTA imports 70,000 tons of tropical wood annually 80 per cent of which comes from unmanaged or inadequately managed forests in Africa.
Despite the lack of representation by the ITTA, the CIF, the NSAI, Forbairt or IBEC (all were invited) at a seminar in Tullamore on April 3rd, entitled "Forest Conservation Through Responsible Wood and Wood Product Purchasing", I have no doubt that through the interest and enthusiasm of those present at the meet the need for ethical considerations in wood purchasing will not go away. The timber industry will have to take legitimate consumer concerns on board, or it may find that it will lose even more of its market to other materials PVC, or non-renewable materials like aluminium.
With the increase in recent logging bans by the governments of India, Brazil and Cote d'Ivoire the opposition to the South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai's $US40 million logging deal, which is "threatening the traditional lifestyle of tribal people north of Vladivostok in the Russian Far East" the US/Bolivian proposal that Brazilian mahogany be listed as an endangered species at the CITES meeting which will take place in Zimbabwe in June this year, and the strict new EC laws governing international trade in endangered species which "all European citizens will have to abide by, as of June 1st 1997, isn't it time we got forestry related issues right?
At this time, forest certification and timber labelling is a voluntary process. However, I do hope that in the near future independent forest certification and timber labelling will become mandatory in all timber producing countries, as a tool to combat over exploitation of forests by promoting good principles of forest stewardship and to fulfil the legitimate demands of wood and wood-product consumers. These are rightly concerned about the state of the world's forests and avant to be assured that they are not contributing to forest destruction through their purchases. Yours, etc.,
Irish Woodworkers for Africa, Arden Vale, Tullamore, Co Offaly.