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Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

chalmers.se

1–10 of 207 posts

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#2
In my (albeit limited) experience, if you can’t get some sort of provenance documentation for exotic hardwoods from the lumberyard, it’s almost guaranteed to be unsustainably harvested, mostly outright illegally. Unfortunately it seems that most lumberyards open to the public and contractors are full of such wood because the legit stuff is even more expensive and sold mostly to high end furniture manufacturers and specialty suppliers.

Brazil is going to go through the same process as Cuba did with mahogany until trade in ipê is banned entirely, except it’s not an island so it’ll be impossible to enforce.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#6

In my (albeit limited) experience, if you can’t get some sort of provenance documentation for exotic hardwoods from the lumberyard, it’s almost guaranteed to be unsustainably harvested, mostly outright illegally. Unfortunately it seems that most lumberyards open to the public and contractors are full of such wood because the legit stuff is even more expensive and sold mostly to high end furniture manufacturers and sp…

It's OT, and not meant to detract from your point or be pedantic in any way, just something I've seen and heard in software, too:

> providence

when what I am sure you meant to say was "provenance". I've heard people talk and ask about the "providence of the data" too much not to leave a comment, I guess! It's not manna from heaven it's just some rows in a database somewhere ;)

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#7

In my (albeit limited) experience, if you can’t get some sort of provenance documentation for exotic hardwoods from the lumberyard, it’s almost guaranteed to be unsustainably harvested, mostly outright illegally. Unfortunately it seems that most lumberyards open to the public and contractors are full of such wood because the legit stuff is even more expensive and sold mostly to high end furniture manufacturers and sp…

It's OT, and not meant to detract from your point or be pedantic in any way, just something I've seen and heard in software, too: > providence when what I am sure you meant to say was "provenance" . I've heard people talk and ask about the "providence of the data" too much not to leave a comment, I guess! It's not manna from heaven it's just some rows in a database somewhere ;)

Thank you, good catch!

I was researching the provenance of a rare book just yesterday so this is particularly embarrassing

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#8
In 2020, the then president of Brazil said he would reveal which countries were the consumers of the illegally extracted wood from Amazonia. [0]

No further news were heard about it. There were even a startup that would use DNA to certify the origin of the wood, allowing traceability.

The "efforts to halt trade in illegal timber such as the EU Timber Regulation and the US Lacey Act" can greatly contribute to reduce this process: harvesting those trees isn't cheap, and without buyers paying large sums to aquire it, it becomes non-profitable.

[0] in Portuguese: https://exame.com/brasil/bolsonaro-diz-que-revelara-paises-q...

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#9

I'd like to see the research, because I believe there isn't any way to sell ipê wood legally in Brazil. I'm almost certain the real number is higher than the 96%, not the one on the title.

Here:

https://www.chalmers.se/en/current/news/75-percent-of-exclus...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01189-3

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