Don't mess with the orangutans

The timber industry can’t compete with orangutans in public relations. Make it a baby orangutan clinging to its mother in what looks like an area of freshly felled forest, and don’t even bother to turn up for the contest.

We found this out again last week when the Daily Mail splashed a story, with a shot of the mother and baby, alleging that plywood was on sale in the UK made from illegally-felled timber from Indonesian forests where the endangered species lives. Moreover, it was on sale at B&Q and Wickes, which pride themselves on their environmental records.

Dig down and the story is more complex. The starting point last February was that concerns over its timber sourcing led to Peninsular Malaysia's biggest plywood producer Asia Plywood losing its FSC Controlled Wood licence. This had enabled it to use the FSC logo on products blending FSC material with other timber that met specific environmental criteria. Late last year the company’s FSC Mixed products accreditation was withdrawn too. It was apparently also told to advise customers to remove FSC references on any products it supplied between February and December 2011. After that things get more muddied. Asian Plywood is threatening legal action over accusations – and the finger also points at the FSC over its advice to retailers, including B&Q and Wickes – but apparently the message to drop FSC branding didn’t get through and products bearing its logo remained on sale.

However, while some of this detail was in the Daily Mail, as far as many readers are concerned it’s probably academic. What made the impact was the headline about “wood felled illegally from rainforest” and the orangutans.

What the episode brings home, once more, is that the timber industry is still vulnerable on the green front. The spread of environmental certification and chain of custody systems may have transformed its performance and image in the last 20 years, but old public perceptions persist that timber loggers are the lead villains in deforestation, despite the fact that population growth and land clearance for farming and construction are chiefly to blame.

Where all this seems to be heading is a realisation across the timber sector that there is only one way forward: strict enforcement of environmental rules and zero tolerance of any breach. Many in the sector think this is justified on moral grounds. Deforestation is threatening habitats of endangered species and possibly affecting the climate to our detriment. For this alone, they say, there must not even be a sniff of industry involvement.

But then, of course, there are image and PR to consider. And if a few companies still think they can operate in a box and say, for instance, they don’t handle tropical timber so are not affected, the Daily Mail story should make them think again. Beside the orangutans, it showed a shot of racks of softwood in a B&Q store. As far as the media and public are concerned, wood is wood. An adverse story about one product infects others too.

The UK Timber Trade Federation has underlined its zero tolerance commitment by making its responsible purchasing policy compulsory for members and, after allowing time to comply, withdrawing membership from those which don’t. Next year, the EU anti-illegal timber regulation will screw down the lid still tighter. It’s not going to be an easy path, but the industry cannot afford more of those orangutan stories.