Wood for Good

The report argues that tropical wood production can be sustainable if shifted away from primary forest logging toward high-yield plantations on degraded lands. It highlights the role of certification programs like FSC and PEFC, though it notes low adoption rates in high-deforestation regions. The document provides specific recommendations for producers, businesses, consumers, and governments to reduce the environmental impact of wood and paper products.

• Tropical deforestation is a significant driver of climate change, accounting for approximately 15 percent of annual human-caused carbon emissions.
• Southeast Asia is the most profitable and dominant region for tropical wood production, largely because its forests are dominated by the Dipterocarpaceae family, where often half or more of the timber is commercially valuable.
• Selective logging can indirectly lead to total forest loss by creating roads that allow other industries, such as oil palm or charcoal production, to enter and clear the remaining forest.
• Illegal logging negatively impacts the global economy by depressing world timber prices by 16 percent and ensuring that very little profit remains within local communities.
• Tree plantations can be a sustainable alternative to natural forest harvesting because they can produce 3 to 10 times more commercially usable wood than natural forests in the tropics, provided they are established on degraded lands rather than replacing primary forests.
• Mixed-species plantations offer advantages over monocultures, including better protection from pests, improved biodiversity habitat, and the ability to optimize soil nutrients, which reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.
• While certification programs like the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) are the best available tools for ensuring sustainable production, adoption in the tropics is low; less than 12 percent of FSC-certified area and less than 3 percent of PEFC-certified area is in the tropics.
• Reduced-impact logging (RIL) in secondary forests can mitigate environmental damage; for example, an RIL plan in Indonesia is expected to reduce soil and vegetation disturbance by 50 percent and lower costs by 15 percent compared to conventional logging.
• Government procurement is a powerful lever for market change, as G8 countries' government procurement accounts for an estimated 18 percent of the global wood trade.

APA

Elias, P., Boucher, D., Cummings, C., Goodman, L., May-Tobin, C., & Mulik, K. (2012). Wood for Good. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/wood-for-good.pdf

Chicago

Elias, Pipa, Doug Boucher, Cara Cummings, Lael Goodman, Calen May-Tobin, and Kranti Mulik. Wood for Good. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/wood-for-good.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{elias2012wood, author = {Elias, Pipa and Boucher, Doug and Cummings, Cara and Goodman, Lael and May-Tobin, Calen and Mulik, Kranti}, title = {{Wood for Good}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2012}, month = sep, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/wood-for-good.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }