By buying PEFC-certified products, we can all help support local communities to continue looking after our forests. Learn more about the importance of supporting sustainable forest management from our CEO Ben Gunneberg!
“Although we have already been reaching out to over a million people to safeguard the forests and to manage them in a sustainable way, we do have a problem. When the shoppers in the shop see a wooden product, they still think that they are participating in the destruction of trees,” he explains.
“They are not realising that by buying these products they’re helping local communities and they’re safeguarding those forests that they love.”
“If we don’t buy the wooden products, if we don’t support the sustainable safeguarding of those forests, then people will find other jobs and will start looking at cutting down those forests to make them into agriculture or to provide other food production. That’s why it’s so important to buy wooden products.”
What can you do?
Each of us can help protect the world’s forests! All you need to do is to choose PEFC-certified products the next time you go shopping. Especially if it means that you choose forest-based materials instead of alternatives such as plastic.
If we don’t use our forests, the land will be used for other purposes, such as cattle ranches or soy plantations. Buying forest products, such as wood and paper, gives the forest value, it creates demand, and provides a financial incentive to keep a forest a forest.
https://pefc.org/news/external-recognition-and-awareness-raising-an-expression-of-trust-in-pefc