As part of the Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification Chain of Custody system, Teal-Jones maintains a Risk Assessment for all wood based materials for avoidance of raw material from controversial sources. The following information is provided by external governmental or non-governmental organizations active in monitoring forest governance and law enforcement, as well as corruption to assure customers the risk of illegal logging is found to be negligible in all regions of Canada.
1. Natural Resources Canada highlights Canada’s extensive and rigorous system of forest governance to prevent illegal logging.
2. Sustainable Forest Management in Canada confirms Canada has a negligible incidence of suspicious log supply.
3. In British Columbia, Compliance and Enforcement is the law enforcement arm of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The Compliance and Enforcement branch monitor Forestry operations and enforce a large number of resource management laws, including Forest and Range Practices Act, Wildfire Act, Forest Act, Land Act, Environmental Management Act, Water Act, and associated regulations.
4. International Non- Governmental Studies and Reports
a. How Canada Compares International Review of Forest Policy and Regulation: A summary of a study conducted by Professor Benjamin Cashore, Yale University July 2004. This study confirms that Canada’s forest management policies and practices are among the most stringent in the world.
b. Findings by organizations in Canada’s export markets also indicate that Canadian wood products are of negligible risk with respect to illegality.*
c. The World Bank Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG), UK based Chatham House Illegal Logging Portal, Environmental Investigation Agency and Global Witness do not indicate Canada has any significant problem with illegal forest practices.
* Source: European Commission (PDF, 1.4 MB) (page 13, table 3.1); and Mi, R., McInnis, T. and Heyhoe, E. 2010, The economic consequences of restricting the import of illegally logged timber (PDF, 480 KB). COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT
5. Third Party Certification attests to the integrity of the companies’ forest management practices.
6. Letter provided by the BC Minister of Forests relative to the EU declaration process and their new Timber Regulation. (Jan. 2013)
7. BC Legislative Supervision documentation (Jan. 2013)
8. Canada Wood UK website link for EU importers and agents (referred to as Operators in the EU Timber Regulations):
This website highlights details of the Regulations and provides information that may give the Operator in the EU more confidence and some of the paperwork that they can use to back up their decisions for low risk assessment of Canadian forest products.
9. Canada’s systems approach to legislative supervision makes Products of Canada a negligible risk.
10. SFMCanada.org website and the page related to the legal timber products.
11. The website features information from the Provinces/Territories on their forest management legislative framework.
Information provided on this page and throughout this site will help provide assurance that laws and regulations are in place to ensure the legality of Canada’s wood supply.