In 2023, South Carolina lost 1.02% of its natural forest area, while Brazil lost 0.55%. (Data from Global Forest Watch. Natural forest area for both per 2010 data ..read more

White Oak log exports from the United States to the European Union have more than doubled thus far in 2023. They’re up 116% through June. Interestingly, total White Oak log exports are down -9%. This is according to official government data available on the Global Agricultural Trade System. Exports of White Oak logs to Spain more than tripled with an increase of 238%, followed by Germany (85%), Portugal (35%), and Italy (30%). This apparently large growth is partially a result of coming off such a low base. The EU is a relatively small market for U.S. White Oak logs. In 2022, it accounted for ..read more

In 2022, the U.S. Southeast lost a higher percentage of its natural forest area than the deforestation hotspots of Brazil, Cameroon, and Indonesia. In fact, the state of South Carolina lost 1.15% of its natural forest area, while the Brazilian Amazonian state of Pará lost just 0.77%. Although forest change in the United States has been overlooked relative to other major timber producing countries, a new law in the European Union suddenly brings U.S. forest degradation into focus. The E.U. Deforestation Regulation The European Union has banned the importation of wood products from deforestatio ..read more

The Timber Asset Protection Act goes into effect on September 1, 2023 in Texas. It was sponsored by six Republicans and petitioned for by the Texas Forestry Association. The law changed the documentation requirements for the purchase of timber products and created a criminal offense for non-compliance. This new timber sale requirement will support due diligence efforts on timber originating from Texas timber harvests. Why was the Timber Asset Protection Act passed? The law was passed due to a rising occurrence of timber theft cases in the state (Source: Texas Forestry Association). The past f ..read more

The U.S. southeast lost 0.84% of its natural forest area in 2022, while Brazil lost 0.66%. Other “deforestation hotspots”, Cameroon and Indonesia, lost 0.48% and 0.25% respectively. Although a relatively high rate of natural forest loss in the U.S. southeast is not new, this data is becoming increasingly relevant as governments begin penalizing wood supply chains from countries with high rates of deforestation and forest degradation. For example, starting in 2025, the EU will subject wood products from countries labeled “high-risk” of deforestation and forest degradation to increased checks a ..read more

The EUDR benchmarking system classifies countries as low, standard, or high-risk for deforestation or forest degradation. It is a critical component of the new EU Deforestation Regulation because it establishes which countries (or parts thereof) will be subject to more scrutiny and import requirements. This process was to begin when the new law came into effect, which was June 29, 2023. It’s supposed to be completed in the 18 months ending December 29, 2024. The EUDR benchmarking system penalizes origins labeled “high-risk” Products from countries (or parts thereof) labeled high-risk by the EU ..read more

One of the policy failures of the new EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is that it’s likely to increase supply chain carbon emissions. How? By encouraging the import of raw materials into the EU market at the expense of value-added ones. If the EU market for US hardwoods responds to the EUDR by shipping logs instead of lumber, supply chain CO2 could increase 4x for some species. This article is Part (1) in a series exploring how the EUDR encourages the shipment of US hardwood logs to the EU at the expense of lumber, and the subsequent increase in EU supply chain carbon emissions. In this arti ..read more

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires importers of wood products into the European Union to provide the GPS coordinates of the real estate property(s) from which all trees used in making the product were harvested. Additionally, if the timber was harvested in a country labeled “high risk”, then documentation of risk analysis and mitigation measures is required to demonstrate that there is negligible-risk of deforestation, forest degradation, and/or illegalities for each timber harvest site. (For more on the EUDR risk classification system see: Will the EUDR label US hardwood lumber h ..read more

Will US hardwood lumber be considered high-risk under the new EU Deforestation Regulation? There is a strong case that US hardwood lumber will be classified as high-risk for violation of the Regulation considering: the criteria that the European Commission (EC) will use to classify products and their origin by risk, recent U.S. trends in deforestation and forest degradation, that only 10% of US hardwood lumber production is feasibly traceable back to its point of harvest (Source: AHEC), and that there is virtually no enforcement in the U.S. of the law governing the interstate trade of illegal ..read more

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