Podchat 15 | Greenwashing and Misleading Sustainability Certifications in Forestry with Peter Wood
Have you ever seen those slick little certification logos on a product that claims it comes from sustainable forestry practices? Unfortunately, those certifications aren’t those most ethical, accurate, and in some cases are just downright bogus, and may not truly reflect the logging practices used to obtain that wood.
Peter Wood is a campaigner for Canopy Planet, as well as an adjunct professor at the UBC Faculty of Forestry and a consultant for organizations such as Ecojustice. With greenwashing being so prevalent these days, our forest products are no different, so I sat down with Peter to chat all about the nuances of these false certifications, how they came to be, current legal challenges, and what you can do to help create a better marketplace for ethically sourced wood products.
Links & Resources from this episode:
EcoJustice legal challenges:
Against the Canadian Standards Association (e.g. certified Teal Jones and Fairy Creek tenure) (July 2021):
Against the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (e.g. certified a large proportion of Canadian forestry, including all BC Timber Sales) (November 2022)
This letter was sent by Canada’s consulate to New York State Senators in response to their proposed Deforestation-Free Procurement Act. The letter argues that "widespread use of third-party forest management certification...provides added assurance that a forest company is operating legally, sustainably and in compliance with world-recognized standards for sustainable forest management”.
In the end, these lobbying efforts were successful in making sure that this law did not apply to Canada, as detailed in this CBC piece.
Canopy Planet forest mapper tool
TJ Watts before & after photos from certified ‘sustainable’ old growth clearcuts
Regime changes & logging affecting Salmonid survival study
OSO Landslide in 2014* logging influence
Competition Bureau - 1-800-348-5358 - @CompBureau
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