The term “exotic hardwoods” refers to woods that originate in other parts of the world often tropical forests. Asia- Thailand, India, Indonesia. China, Africa, Madagascar,South America-
Since 1990, the world has lost 420 million hectares or about a billion acres of forest, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—mainly in Africa and South America. About 17% of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years.
It takes decades if not longer for many these exotic tree species to reach maturity and be able to be harvested. At the rate that loggers are chopping down trees in tropical ares, the environment is unable to keep up with the destruction.
On top of all that, once the hardwoods are clear-cut from the rainforest, the logs then have to be shipped across the world for manufacturing and distribution. This extreme amount of transportation leads to a high amount of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere.
However woods that grow locally like maple, oak, cherry, walnut, ash, pine, ceder and other do not take as long to grow and therefor are more suitable for cutting down and travel short distances between harvesting and processing and are taken from sustainably managed forests.
According to the British Woodworking Federation European forests are growing by 661,000 hectares each year. This shows that it’s a readily-available resource which we’re not going to run out of anytime soon and are transported more sufficiently to the consumer as distances are short.
We are very serious about only using sustainable timber that is from certified source. Before finding the suitable mill for our wood, I travelled to many others across Europe and was pleased to see that all of them use sustainable European Hardwoods.
Have you even thought about where your furniture is from and how it can affect the environment?