All imported timber sold in Australia could carry a source of origin label under a new Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) proposal to boost local supply and crack down on illegal imports. The proposal, one of several put to the main parties ahead of the next federal election, will be plastered on billboard and radio advertisements in marginal seats.
Under the proposal, the regulations would be backed by an enforcement regime that could use new technology to trace the provenance of timber. According to Diana Hallam, AFPA’s CEO, new country of origin labelling is about giving consumers confidence that timber (and paper) products are sustainably sourced:
“When consumers are presented with information and have a choice and prices are basically the same, they choose Australian because they want to support the jobs and industry behind it,” Ms Hallam told the Australian. “They want to support the towns and community and employees who have contributed to that over generations.
“Country of origin labelling is a cost-effective measure that parties can support. Ensuring that consumers have visibility of the origin of products at their hardware stores is important and is good for the entire supply chain.”
Diana Hallam, CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association on the value of country of origin labelling.
It comes after Wood Central revealed last year that a verification trial conducted by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry found that up to 30% of timber tested at Australian ports had “inconsistent” species or origin claims. At the time, Matt Lowe, Deputy Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Policy, said illegal timber accounts for 15-30% of all wood traded globally: “Using timber testing technologies will strengthen Australia’s ongoing efforts to address this problem by enhancing existing compliance and due diligence efforts under our illegal logging prohibition laws.”
“They offer a means of verifying if claims made about the species and harvest origin of timber are accurate. The trial tested 146 products and 39 distinct species. A range of scientific methods were used, including DNA, stable isotope, trace element, wood fibre and wood anatomy analyses.”
Already, the Albanese government has introduced legislation requiring importers and processors of regulated timber products to conduct “due diligence” to determine the provenance of their stock. Aiming to crack down on illegal logging imports, the laws, which will come into effect next month, will also enable the department to use new timber testing technologies to verify species and origin claims.
“All our forestry activities in Australia on public land are certified,” Ms Hallam said. “If you’re harvesting here, you adhere to the strongest environmental regulation. That is not evident on timber elsewhere.
Of particular concern is the so-called “conflict timber” from war zones or countries subject to sanctions, such as Russia – with the UK-based ENGO group Earthsight revealing that €1.5 billion worth of Putin-linked timber has flooded all EU member states since the start of the Ukraine war: “It’s so easy that as much as a fifth of all the birch ply on sale in Europe today is thought to be illegal Russian blood timber,” the ENGO said.
It comes as Australian timber suppliers have long suspected timber harvested in Russia and Belarus is being sold in Australia under false country-of-origin labels to circumvent tariffs imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
- To learn more about the challenge faced at Australian Ports, click here for “Crackdown: How Australia Tackles Illegal Timber at Ports.“
