Huge volumes of timber imported into Australia could be (unknowingly) illegal or ‘conflict’ timber, with a new report published by Australia’s Department of Agriculture under the Freedom of Information Act revealing that 50% of all sampled products could not accurately verify the provenance of the wood.
The report, produced by Source Certain—the body which last month revealed that up to 7.5% of all timber used in UK house building could be traced to Russian oligarch-controlled forests—revealed that whilst all known examples of Australian-grown timber were correctly labelled, 63% of import samples carrying private certifications were incorrectly labelled.
“This indicates a lack of ability of third-party certification to act as an assurance to support the integrity of a product that is carrying a claim within the consumer market and undermines the credibility of the certification mark itself. These findings indicate importers are likely relying too heavily on third-party certification as a solution to conclude the negligible risk of illegal provenance.”
Source Certain combined market surveillance with lab analysis, to test more than 174 different items of timber-based products. The problems lie with imports: 37 of 74 imported items return results inconsistent with their claimed provenance or taxonomy, resulting in a failure rate of 50 per cent. Impacted import categories included oak, teak and birch products, a range of softwoods, and manufactured items such as veneers, engineered wood and plywood.
Wood Central understands that private certification schemes were frequently implicated, with investigators finding that imported products commonly displayed claims that were absent, expired, inconsistent with certifier records, or otherwise unreliable. By contrast, every tested sample of Australian‑grown timber matched its declared species and provenance, underlining a clear contrast in traceability between domestic and imported supply chains.
Source Certain identified product groups and origins of particular concern, naming Burmese teak in rough‑sawn form and in composite goods such as doors; Russian plywood and laminated veneer lumber, including birch, larch and pine LVLs; veneers and plywood manufactured in China, notably Bintangor‑faced panels; and composite products from Southeast Asia such as Meranti‑faced marine plywood, doors and mouldings.
And whilst it stops short of asserting that every mismatch equates to illegality, it warns that the scale of discrepancies materially increases the risk of timber with dubious provenance entering Australian markets. It also notes that the pattern aligns with enforcement experience in other jurisdictions with due diligence laws.
Source Certain frames the problem as systemic, saying industry reliance on paperwork and certification marks is frequently insufficient to manage provenance risk. The report recommends a shift to a test‑centred model of assurance that embeds routine taxonomic verification and forensic provenance testing into procurement and compliance, complemented by an enforcement capability and systems‑level controls to prevent illegal or conflict timber from entering the market.
Its practical recommendations target both industry and regulators and are designed to make traceability verifiable and scalable. They include clearer and simpler supply‑chain documentation, expanded unannounced second‑ and third‑party audits with a timber‑legality focus, and mandatory importer declarations supported by independent Certificates of Analysis. Source Certain also proposes a stepped testing regime to cheaply screen low‑risk consignments before escalating to forensic analysis, investment in laboratory capacity and faster, lower‑cost screening technologies, and stronger labelling standards—ranging from improved product descriptions to QR codes or distributed‑ledger records that carry verifiable product histories.
- To learn more about the surge of engineered wood products, including LVL, arriving in Australia via Russia, click here for Wood Central’s special feature in April 2024.
