We get often the question if we sell FSC teak. More and more customers are concerned about the legality of the wooden garden furniture they are buying; as well becoming more sceptical about wooden garden furniture that has been made of wood from tropical rain forests.

 

The story behind FSC teak and illegal teak from tropical rain forests…

 

At this moment there is no good quality teak wood with FSC label available in the market. Some teak wood from South American plantations has the certification of teak but the availability is limited and the quality of this teak is not as nice as the 2 most famous producers of teak: Miramar (before known as Burma) and Indonesia.

 

The most garden furniture produced in Vietnam comes from teak wood from Africa, Laos & Cambodia and…. Burma.

 

- African teak wood is mostly young teak wood with a lot of sapwood and the legality of the wood is very doubtable.

 

- Laos and Cambodia teak is less in quality with many dead knots and definitely comes from tropical rain forests. All environmental organisations are protesting against the further logging in these countries.

 

- Burmese teak is maybe the nicest teak wood available on the market. Nice performance but with a very bad background. The Burmese military government needs the money of the teak export to finance the military regime and is logging the tropical rain forests in fast tempo. All NGO’s are warning strongly not to support the military regime in Burma and to stop the fast deforestation of Miramar; they warn for a huge ecological disaster in the coming decades when the deforestation of Burma continues.

 

Indonesian teak from teak plantations around Java….

 

In Asia, Indonesia is the only country producing garden furniture from plantation teak. The Dutch planted teak (Tectona Grandis) from high quality around Java. They started the first plantations; the same plantations still supply the wood for the garden furniture industry in Indonesia nowadays.

 

Although the logging went too fast in the beginning 90’s of the past century nowadays many reforestation programs are set up and within the next decade many problems of shortage will be solved. Nevertheless the quantity of available teak wood is limited for the moment; the Indonesian government is doing a good job to avoid natural disasters like are happening in Burma nowadays.

 

The Indonesian Government controls the logging of the wood well but still some illegal logging can not be avoided.

 

For teak garden furniture buyers that want to be sure it is important that their supplier has a good Chain of Custody (COC).

 

We at do have such a system that controls the logs “from forests till finished product in the carton”.

 

With us just a handful of garden furniture manufacturers we are an exception in the market.

 

We give you the guarantee that our wood is coming from Javanese plantations and that the wood has been officially purchased from Perum Perhutani, the official governmental organisation that regulates the logging, administration and sales of teak wood (Tectona Grandis) from plantations. Perum Perhutani works together with projects of several Ngo’s to insure the logging is environmentally acceptable.

 

We and our manufacturers check the source of the wood until the administration departments of Perum Perhutani to insure the wood is legally logged from highly responsible organized plantations.

 

 

Legal wood is an issue for us. Legal wood is an issue for our manufacturer. Let legal wood be an issue for you too!

 

When you want to know more about legal teak wood please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Let 2008 be a good start for the teak forests around Asia and choose for garden furniture made from legal teak wood.