Productive Forests

The importance of Productive Forests

Productive Forests Group

Productive forests generate income and employment in remote areas with few economic opportunities. Industries and hundreds of millions of households worldwide depend on them for timber, paper, packaging, charcoal, biomass, viscose and many other products.

Demand for these traditional forest products grows every year, and now - as we urgently seek alternatives to steel, concrete, plastics and fossil fuels - forests will fuel the emerging bio-economy. But we also need them to sequester and store more carbon, provide diverse habitats, clean water, stable soils, new medicines and other ecosystem services. And, for many indigenous people and other communities, forests are central to their economic and spiritual wellbeing.

In short, forests are a vast and diverse renewable resource, but they are not limitless. In many places, intensifying demand is leading to the degradation of carbon, biodiversity and other ecosystem values, so that the global scale of forest degradation impacts is comparable to those of outright deforestation.

EF partners major forest product companies towards genuinely responsible sourcing. Together, we work to identify forest sources, assess risks, engage and collaborate with upstream suppliers, and ensure that supply chains are anchored in landscapes where commercial production is balanced with community wellbeing, carbon storage and ecological values. EF’s approach brings transparency and the capability to engage directly with forest industry and other key stakeholders in source forest landscapes, complementing and building on the assurances that forest governance and voluntary certification are able to provide.

The Productive Forests Group

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This approach brings transparency and the capability to engage directly with forest industry and other key stakeholders in source forest landscapes, complementing and building on the assurances that forest governance and voluntary certification are able to provide.