Kanchanaburi, Thailand (dpa) – Teak, one of nature’s hardest, most insect-resistant woods, was Thailand’s main export to Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Long before deforestation became a global taboo, timber companies from Denmark, England and France won vast forest concessions in Thailand which they levelled to export thousands of tons of teak and other tropical hardwoods back to Europe to make sturdy ships, wood- pannelled houses and solid furniture.
Nowadays, environmentally aware Europeans want to make sure their Asian wood products come only from sustainable forests, and are not the result of wholesale ecological rape, now more likely to be committed by Asian than Western loggers.
Consequently, the Mexico-based Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – an offspring of the Earth Summit in Rio a decade ago – is in growing demand by Southeast Asian foresters seeking “green labelling,” and thereby promoting their wood exports in the environmentally conscious European markets.
FSC certification guarantees that wood products come from forests that are deemed socially, environmentally and commercially sustainable.
Ironically, FSC approval, could turn Thailand into a teak exporter once more, a development that worries local conservationists.
FSC’s consultant, Smart Works of the United States, arrived in Thailand recently to evaluate two teak plantations under the management of the Forest Industry Organization (FIO), seeking the council’s “green labelling” certification.
“We are pretty sure we will meet FSC standards, because we’ve been preparing for this for the past two years,” said Banleng Chanwowwam, the FIO manager who oversees the Thong Phahphum teak plantation in Kanchanburi Province, 220 kilometres west of Bangkok.
Thong Phahphum plantation, covering about 3,000 hectares of land in the middle of a national forest reserve, was established as a pilot project for the “forest village” concept in 1978.
Half a dozen villages that had set up on the then-deforested land were induced to move to one concentrated area outside the plantation, but neighbouring it.
The villagers, about 50 families, were offered free plots of land to build their houses and grow crops, and provided with a public school and Buddhist temple.
They were also hired as day labourers to plant trees. About 70 per cent of the plantation is dedicated to teak, with the remaining 30 per cent allotted to other species.
Having the villagers near the plantation is a crucial part of proving to the FSC that the Thong Phahphum is socially sustainable, and has not disrupted the livelihood of the local population.
Proving environmental sustainability may be more difficult in an essentially mono-culture teak forest, but Thong Phahphum has benefitted from the forest reserves surrounding it.
“FSC advisors told us that if there is natural forest around the plantation that’s good for its bio-diversity,” said Banleng, who admitted that few of the FIO’s other 133 plantations nationwide – covering 140,000 hectares – may be similarly well situated.
Of the FIO’s 134 plantations, some 50 per cent are teak, 20 per cent eucalyptus, 10 per cent rubber and the remainder other woods.
While teak plantations are less controversial than eucalyptus, a fast-growing tree that many environmentalists claim is bad for the soil, it still has other problems associated with mono-culture.
For starters the wood’s legendary hardness extends to its seeds, which are inedible for birds and wild animals.
Teak is also slow growing, with no profits during the first 15 years when the forest can finally be thinned. A 30-year old teak tree, however, is valuable, fetching about 250 dollars per cubic metre in Thailand.
The FIO argues that growing teak on Thailand’s denuded land is better for the country’s environment than growing other cash crops.
“Twenty years ago the government conducted a survey that concluded that to sustain our ecological stability we must have 40 per cent forest cover, but at present we have only 25 per cent of our forests left,” said Chittiwat Silapat, FIO planning and budget director.
The FIO insists that FSC certification for its plantations will not only enhance the commercial potential of Thailand’s wood industry and exports, but would also encourage more farmers to switch from growing cash crops to trees.
The organisation’s critics, however, argue that the state enterprise is missing the forest for the trees.
“If the FIO can get FSC for their plantation, that might help them legitimize their operation and expand their plantations,” said Witoon Permpongsacharoen, head of the Bangkok-based environmental group TERRA (Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance).
TERRA argues that the FIO, set up after World War II to handle commerical logging after European firms were barred from the business, has suffered an identity crisis since Thailand’s banned all commercial logging in 1989.
“Now logging is over and the FIO has no job,” said Witoon, who wants to see the state enterprise scrapped and its plantations returned to forest reserves.
“This FSC scheme is not based on what the country needs, but on the politics of an institution,” he said.
