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the very different challenges facing the US hardwood sector that it alone would not, in any case, provide a ‘green lane’
to satisfy the EUDR. through the regulation) was also not an option in the US as
Executive director Mike Snow said the EUDR was ‘going it had not been taken up widely. This was again in large part
after the right things’ in terms of its prime aim to combat due to fragmented, small-scale forest ownership.

deforestation caused by conversion of forest land and in its
coverage of the agricultural commodities most implicated in this. Bespoke deforestation-free system for US hardwoods
He added, the risk of US hardwood deriving from such Mr Oliver said that, faced with these hurdles, AHEC has been
land was extremely low. “It’s estimated that disturbance developing a bespoke system to provide a robust assurance
of hardwood forest in terms of conversion to agriculture is to international buyers that U.S. hardwoods are legally sourced
running at about 0.005 percent of the total area a year,” he and deforestation-free.
said. “In anyone’s book, that is negligible risk.” One of the pillars of the system, which is being created
Regardless, the US hardwood sector will have to provide with US government support, is legality risk assessment of
proof to EU customers that each consignment of timber is the 33 principal hardwood forest states. This is set to be

legal and deforestation-free under the terms of the regulation, completed this year by a team of experts from non-profit
and that’s the problem. sustainability and environmental management consultants
The key issue for the US hardwood sector, explained Mr and advisors Dovetail Partners.
Snow, was the fragmentation of forest ownership and the low Mr Oliver explained that the AHEC system will combine
intensity management operated in the country’s more than the legality risk assessment with regular ‘high resolution’
nine million private holdings. monitoring of deforestation risk at the level of individual
With mills sourcing from a supply base of small forest properties using AI and drawing on satellite data and the

plots, often family owned, they would need to provide multiple uniquely detailed land ownership mapping available in the US.
geolocation coordinates for each timber shipment. Moreover, “Satellite forest monitoring is best done on an annual
as these plots may only be harvested once a generation, basis to show whether forest disturbance is part of regular
sourcing coordinates would be different from year to year. forestry processes or long-term and potentially deforestation,”
The task would be highly complex and labour intensive. said Mr Oliver. “A pilot of the system undertaken in the
Mr Snow went so far as to say that, as things stand, the first quarter of 2024 in Georgia picked up 11,000 points of
EUDR posed a potentially ‘existential challenge’ to the US forest disturbance, but the preliminary AI analysis suggested
hardwood sector’s EU exports. Moreover, it had implications only a tiny proportion of these would likely be followed by
for its trade more widely. conversion to agriculture.”

“While the EU itself accounts directly for 10 percen of While the analysis will be carried out at sufficiently high
US exports, its significance to the US industry is increased
by the fact that a significant proportion of our exports to Getty Images
other countries, including China, Turkey, India, and Vietnam,
are made into finished products destined for the EU. So,
they will have to meet the requirements of the EUDR too.”
AHEC environmental policy director Rupert Oliver said

that relying on third party certification of forest management
as a risk mitigation tool under the EUDR (and he stressed