A group of West European buyers of Russian timber have joined forces and are liaising with Greenpeace Russia in a bid to raise the standards for ecological harvesting and processing of logs in the country.
The group – the European Platform for Ecological Russian Timber – says its final aim is to obtain 100% Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified timber from Russia. It also wants to see chain of custody in place at the sawmills from which it buys in Archangel.
The six companies – three from Holland and the remainder from Germany, the UK and Belgium – have several short-term goals. These include not buying any products from intact forests until protection plans are in place; implementing a reliable chain of custody to ensure wood products from environmentally unacceptable locations do not go to members of the group; implementing pilot projects of reasonable environmental logging standards such as FSC.
