John Park, founder of the Wood Bureau , got a chance to put the record straight on BBC Radio Four’s Home Planet programme this week.
He contacted the BBC after hearing Dr Colleen Kelly, a plant scientist at Southampton University, tell a listener on the previous week’s phone-in programme that one of the ways to help stop deforestation of tropical forests was to stop buying tropical wood products.
That, argued Mr Park this week, was not the solution – or even part of the solution.
He explained to listeners that of the estimated 3.6 billion m3 of hardwood and softwood harvested annually, 2 billion m3 is used for firewood, adding that the problem is not created – and nor will it be solved – by consumer decisions of the western world.
He said that for forests to be commercially managed they must have a commercial value for communities dependent upon them. And he said that until illegal logging is addressed at government level in some countries the situation will be exacerbated.
Describing the issue as ‘long term’, Mr Park said industrial wood-consuming nations must become an active and positive part of the solution – but not just by resorting to negative and unhelpful boycotts.
