Wirtschaftswoche reports on Betterwood

The rainforest is burning in the Amazon – how is the timber industry reacting? In its current issue, WirtschaftsWoche (WiWo) reports on how sustainable forest management in the tropics can contribute to environmental protection:

Despite the devastating fires in the Amazon region, Brazilian wood remains a sought-after building material. This could possibly even protect the rainforest – if it were possible to curb fraud and illegal trade.

Business Week 37/2019

The Betterwood concept enables local people to live from and with the forest and thus ensure its long-term existence. The business magazine therefore cites our company as a pioneer:

Jaeger and his company [want] to contribute to change. “Tropical wood has a similar reputation to heavy oil. The worst business you can do,” says Jaeger. “We want to turn that around.”

However, the magazine also shows the problems involved in achieving this goal:

A forest simply cannot compete with the profitability of a soybean field or livestock farming, even if its wood is traded fairly. “As a timber association, we should actually be calling for people to give up meat,” says Nils Olaf Petersen from the German Timber Trade Association, describing the crude situation.

Nevertheless, the use and promotion of certified tropical timber remains one of the most effective measures to slow down the displacement of forests:

If the suppliers of FSC® wood could no longer find buyers
and therefore also clear-cut their hectares, nobody would be helped. (…) And association expert Petersen also wants to stick to the idea of “protection through use”, albeit for different reasons: “Every system has gaps. But sustainability certification is the best thing we have.”

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Source: Wirtschaftswoche, 37/2019, pages 58-60.