Sustainable timber

The specification of ‘sustainable timber’ is examined as a way forward to balance the utilisation of timber with the concern about deforestation Although at this point there is no international agreement on what is sustainable timber, a number of timber certification programs and forest management initiatives are operating, or are being established, These initiatives are largely voluntary in nature but as a consequence they bring unnecessary confusion to the market place, This paper proposes the adoption of initiatives by the Forest Stewardship Council, the International organisation for Standardisation, and the international Tropical Timber organisation as the basis of claiming sustainable timber.