Sustainable value chains and valuing forest ecosystem services

Probos supports and promotes sustainable forest management (SFM) worldwide. Under the Cities4Forest program (C4F), which ended March 2024, Probos and partners set up new value chains for ‘conservation timber’ supply to Dutch cities. This pioneering work signaled a great interest in The Netherlands and Europe for timber and timber products from sustainable community forest management operations. However, the supply of conservation timber on the European market remains limited. Therefore, a new project has been initiated together with our local partner in Suriname, ESS, to support the production and supply of conservation timber from Suriname.

Encourage and record sustainable procurement by timber traders.
To position timber as one of the solutions to help address climate change, and use the momentum to promote the use of timber, there should be no debate about sustainable sourcing. Progressive Timber Trade Federations (TTFs) in Europe should encourage their members only to trade timber harvested from certified sustainably managed forests. Furthermore, this supports their members to comply with legal requirements including the upcoming EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

Conservation timber in Rotterdam

Rotterdam's 'Beterbank' (‘Betterbench’) combines the city's sustainability ambitions with a beautiful design for a new city bench based on six different tropical wood species. Initially, 50 Beterbanken (Betterbenches) will be installed, spread across Rotterdam. The first bench was placed on March 27, 2024 near Westerkade 31.

The wood species on the Beterbank come from community forests in the tropics, in the case of Rotterdam from Bolivia and Guyana. In addition to being FSC certified, the wood comes from forests managed by local communities.

Cities4Forests Amsterdam and Rotterdam

Amsterdam and Rotterdam are two of six European cities that have been invited to engage in the Cities4Forests partnership to showcase community-forest enterprises and the conservation benefits of using sustainably sourced ‘conservation timber’ and the wood product that result from it. These high-visibility exchanges will promote consumer awareness, forest stewardship, and urban policies that exhibit leadership on climate and biodiversity. These local-to-local partnerships can demonstrate the power of “thinking globally, and acting locally.”

SURINAME CLIMATE SMART FORESTRY Program (CSF-P): a forest carbon project under the Verified Carbon Standard through reduced impact logging (RIL-C).

The aim of this study is to make further insightful the sustainability and legality of the import of tropical primary and secondary wood products by the EU27+UK. The seven main importing countries (Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany and Spain) together represent approximately 90% of the EU28 primary tropical timber product import. The concentration of imports in these seven countries provides a strong lever for change. A rapid shift towards sustainable timber could have wide-ranging consequences for the world’s tropical forests.

In 2018, Gabon’s president announced that all forest concessions in the country should be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard by 2022. A challenging ambition. Since the announcement, the forest sector in Gabon has been strongly mobilised, aiming at gathering and sharing of knowledge and information on the various certification schemes for sustainable forest management.

To position timber as one of the solutions to help address climate change, and hence use the momentum to promote the use of timber, there should be no debate about responsible sourcing. For this reason, progressive Timber Trade Federations (TTFs) and other relevant organisations should encourage their members to trade timber harvested from responsibly managed forests. Sourcing from responsibly managed forests helps comply with legal requirements, like the EUTR (EU), Lacey Act (USA) and ILPA (Australia).

The EUTR came into effect in 2013, making it illegal to place timber on the EU market if it was illegal in country of harvest, and requiring companies to implement due diligence measures to reduce the risk of illegal timber entering the EU. The LIFE Legal Wood project aims to further strengthen implementation of the EUTR.

Chatham House has been working on forest governance, illegal logging and deforestation since 2000. Much of Chatham House work focuses on efforts to tackle the international trade in illegal timber. This includes the Indicators of Illegal Logging Project, which investigates the nature and extent of illegal logging and the associated trade in illegal timber, as well as the effectiveness of the response to this issue by both the government and the private sector.

Probos supports the Beijing Forestry Society in developing a practical Timber Procurement Policy (TPP) recommendation for the Authorities of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and the 2019 International Horticulture Exposition.

Close to 94% of the land surface of Suriname is covered with forests. In only 5% of the forest, trees are harvested for commercial timber trade. Forest Management principles are based on the Celos Management System, developed in Suriname from the 1960s to 1980s. This allows an annual allowable cut of 25 m3 per ha on a 25 year cycle. In practice the average annual harvest is below 8 m3 per ha. One of the main reasons for this low figure is the heterogeneity of the forest and harvest concentration on about 20 timber species. To decrease the pressure on these, it is important to harvest a greater variety, and this is encouraged through certified sustainable forest management (SFM).

94% of the land surface of Suriname is covered with forests. The management principles under which they are managed are based on the Celos Management System that was developed from the ‘60’s up until the ‘80’s. Based on this system the yearly permitted harvest has been determined at 25m³ per ha in a cycle of  25 years. In practice the average yearly harvest lies below 8m³ per ha. One of the most important reasons for this low number is the heterogeneity of the forest and the focus on the harvest of approximately 20 tree species.

The objective of this project is to establish long-term business relations and creating business with European tropical timber traders, to support market entrance of (FSC) certified timber (-products) from sustainably managed forests in Suriname. As a means to reach this goal, a business visit for a group of 12 to 16 European tropical timber traders o/a buyers to Suriname was organized. The trade mission took place from November 7 to 14, 2015. A total of 17 participants joined the mission, representing 15 different organizations of which 10 companies potentially might directly buy forest products from the FSC certified Surinamese companies. All participants are enthusiastic about the mission and what the Surinamese companies have to offer. During the trade mission several individual business encounters took place and this continued after the mission. In fact, the importing companies are also considering collaboration to make sourcing of FSC-certified timber more cost-effectively.

The IDH (the Sustainable Trade Initiative) Tropical Timber Program (TTP) focuses both on creating supply of sustainable tropical timber as well as demand for sustainable tropical timber. Three existing programs focus on tropical forest certification: one in the Amazon region, one in Borneo and one in the Congo-Basin region and one existing program focuses on increasing demand for sustainable tropical timber in the Netherlands.