Bulletins and News Discussion from December 9th to December 15th, 2024 - Assad Must Go

"We love wood, we love forests!" So declares IKEA, the global purveyor of disposable furniture, in a glossy promotional video. Staying true to their Scandinavian rainbow capitalist branding, IKEA extols the virtues of wood as a sustainable material, backed by lofty claims of eco-friendly forestry practices.

In Romania where IKEA is the largest owner of forests, the Carpathian old-growth forests are not feeling the love. Drone footage from a forest near the Ukrainian border shown in a recent documentary by Danish state media DR shows how large square patches of what used to be pristine woodland has been cut completely clear, resembling what a forestry expert calls "a lunar landscape". A total of 12 hectares has been cut down with IKEA planning to fell the entire forest.

Using a staggering 20 million cubic metres of lumber a year, IKEA is one of the world's largest consumers of wood. If all the logs used by IKEA were put next to eachother they would reach around the globe seven times.

The lumber from these forests bears the FSC stamp, assuring the guilty conscience of eco-conscious consumers that the wood has been harvested in an ethical and sustainable way. The Romanian FSC standards requires loggers to leave at least one large old-growth, a so-called habitat tree, tree per hectare standing to help flora and wildlife recover. It is also against the standards to cut down trees with birds' nests. Romanian standards are already lax, with for instance Danish FSC standards requiring at least five habitat trees per hectare. The drone footage shows that not a single tree has been left standing.

The drone footage tells a different story: not a single tree has been left standing in the clearcut areas. In another Romanian forest, IKEA left behind a single, severely damaged tree with a broken canopy—technically fulfilling the bare minimum FSC requirements. Jacob Heilmann Clausen, a forestry expert from the University of Copenhagen, criticized this approach, pointing out that a truly sustainable practice would leave many more habitat trees intact. He calls IKEA's practices "completely off the mark for what you would call sustainable forestry in 2024".

Destroying The Forest To Save The Forest

When confronted with the damning drone footage, Simon Henzell-Thomas, global director of climate and environment for Ingka Group, IKEA's parent company, conceded that no habitat trees remained in the clearcut areas. He explained that habitat trees would eventually be located in the untouched portions of the forest—once logging in those areas is complete. In his words, habitat trees are implemented “on a landscape level, not hectare by hectare.”

Henzell-Thomas further claimed that IKEA has had a positive impact on Romania's forests since it began logging there in 2015, boasting that the company has “saved” the forests and increased their density. “We love wood, we love forests!” he exclaimed, echoing IKEA’s promotional mantra.

Illegal logging remains a serious problem in Romania. Local contractors of IKEA has been fined for overharvesting, for damaging remaining trees and for constructing illegal logging roads.

"Newspeak Invented For The Occasion"

Simon Henzell-Thomas rejects the term clearcutting to describe IKEA's practice of removing every single tree in a logged area. He insists that IKEA "improves" the forest by planting new trees to replace those felled. After completely razing an area, IKEA replants small oak saplings encased in plastic tubes, resulting in a monoculture rather than a diverse ecosystem.

Henzell-Thomas refers to this approach as “substitute cutting” and asserts that it is a well-established forestry method. However, two forestry experts consulted by DR had never encountered the term. “I think it’s a form of newspeak invented for the occasion to distract from having done unsustainable logging,” said Jacob Heilmann Clausen.

Defending the practice of "substitute cutting", Henzell-Thomas claimed that IKEA is replacing invasive species with oaks. "It is better for the soil and better for the long-term health of the forest" he claimed.

Jacob Heilmann Clausen points out that an oak monoculture is certainly not going to improve biodiversity.

Moreover, the trees being cut down by IKEA are not invasive species but native ones, such as hornbeam. Henzell-Thomas claims that oak is "more suitable" for the mountainous area. Although not mentioned by the IKEA representative, oak also happens to be a more commercially valuable species than hornbeam.

The FSC organisation, of which IKEA is a founding member, refused requests for an interview with DR but in a written response that have stated that they "take input from experts seriously" and said they investigate credible concerns.