Sitting well away from home and work on a short break gave me time to reflect on the importance of some things, especially when we met a young person, wheelchair bound with quite severe physical impairment and regularly fighting to get herself heard, even though she’s currently working on a Masters degree from the London School of Economics. All too often, first impressions count against her, but determination and hard work will see her succeed. As I wrote this piece, it got me thinking about our ongoing battles to ensure a fair hearing for timber.
Rumour has it that we are about to see a well-planned, full-scale exposure of timber products coming into Europe, that appear to contravene the anti-illegal timber EU Timber Regulation. It will almost certainly grab some headlines and, regrettably, we’ll see the timber industry being besmirched, much to the pleasure of competing materials.
It goes without saying that the companies involved shouldn’t be surprised to find themselves in the firing line and if the allegations are correct then they need to be dealt with accordingly. What does seem to be missed is the monumental task that the industry has had to tackle, to make sure that we all fulfil every line of this new legislation, particularly when it has only been a few months since we’ve known who our specific contact within government is.
I know, good news doesn’t sell papers, or in this case subscriptions to activist organisations, but perhaps it’s time for us all to tell people just what we’ve achieved, during extremely harsh economic circumstances and to keep reminding people with influence that timber’s the best choice in town!
Let’s continue to weed out the small number of potential offences; that’s part of the day job, but let’s also keep reminding anyone who’ll listen that we’ve been working way ahead of the EUTR for years and we’re going to keep on that course.
In fact, one of our concerns is that the EUTR could lead to a lowering of the bar for ‘Responsible Timber’, which the responsible timber industry has already set itself. In the mainstream legal timber business across the world, we have striven for both legality and sustainability; the EUTR merely focuses on legality. We’re in danger of losing our focus and our overall mission could be diminished. We know that we take our responsibilities very seriously and go well beyond any legal requirements, but do the bureaucrats and other people of influence? Or do they make assumptions from first impressions? We must ensure they don’t.
Meanwhile, we also have another job to do – to keep on reminding those same people that there’s a far greater question mark over many other materials, especially on traceability, let alone sustainability, or their environmental impact from cradle to grave. Undoubtedly the leaders of these competing materials will already be wondering just how they can keep up with the phenomenal systems that the timber sector has in place. This investment will pay off for us; we just have to stick to the plan.
It’s easy for activist organisations to pick the low hanging fruit, like a relatively small exposure of a timber transgression. It’s probably also scary for them to take on giant industries that have huge reserves to fight back. But that doesn’t mean it’s right or that we should give in easily, as we work hard to dispel those mistaken first impressions and bring our industry to a Masters level.
