{"id":13541,"date":"2023-12-11T08:27:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=13541"},"modified":"2024-10-21T20:27:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T10:27:18","slug":"australia-backs-world-forest-id-database-to-end-illegal-logging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/australia-backs-world-forest-id-database-to-end-illegal-logging\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia Backs World Forest ID Database to End Illegal Logging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Australian Government is backing state-of-the-art technology to build the world’s largest timber database, which will be used to eliminate illegal logging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will see the development of a new database that could go live as soon as the second half of 2024, involve Australian-based testing services, and use wood collections to host the samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month<\/a>, Wood Central revealed that illegal logging was surging, leading to the UN Office Responsible for Drugs and Crime setting up a special department to manage forest crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announced by Murray Watt, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, on Friday, the Australian Government has awarded a $1.2 million grant to US-based World Forest ID (WFID) to create a reference database for the verification of species and origin of harvest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WFID partners with labs and governments, including Australia, NGOs and universities, to recruit specialised collectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Every collector goes through rigorous training to ensure collections follow our strict protocols and adhere to an equally strict chain of custody,” according to WFID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wood Central understands the grant will also assist Australia’s neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region, including PNG and the Solomon Islands, which operate significant trade with Chinese manufacturers.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We will also work closely with our Asia-Pacific neighbours to cover trees that are often the target of illegal logging and better protect forests in our region, in a true win-win scenario,” Minister Watt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“WFID is a centralised, global and openly accessible database that can be used for timber testing and identifying species and origins of timber products.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WFID has been formed by an international group of organisations, bringing expertise in forestry, traceability and biological sciences “to create a new global standard in species and origin verification.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has already collected 2163 samples from 290 species in 28 countries, with the data “ensuring that consumers are not sold a lie,” according to the WFID website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Expanding the database to include key species traded into Australia will improve our ability to detect illegally logged timber and prevent it from entering the market,” Minister Watt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With this, we can further protect Australia’s sustainable and legal forest industries from being undercut by illegally logged timber products.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The work will be led by WFID and supported by the internationally recognised Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and collaborating experts within the WFID Science Advisory Group.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian Government is backing state-of-the-art technology to build the world’s largest timber database, which will be used to eliminate illegal logging. It will see the development of a new database that could go live as soon as the second half of 2024, involve Australian-based testing services, and use wood collections to host the samples. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[50,81,45,44],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[69],"class_list":{"0":"post-13541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"category-oceania","9":"category-sustainability","10":"category-sustainable-forest-management"},"authors":[{"term_id":69,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"woodcentral","display_name":"Wood Central","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/MASTER-BRAND-MARK_POS_RGB-e1676449549955.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/MASTER-BRAND-MARK_POS_RGB-e1676449549955.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13543,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions\/13543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13541"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=13541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}