Apr 06, 2006. /Lesprom Network/. The National Association of Forest Industries is concerned with the misleading claims made by The Wilderness Society about the banning of exports of Australian timber products to the UK. “The Wilderness Society is yet again misleading Australians by claiming that exports of our sustainably harvested timber products are facing a ban in the United Kingdom,” said NAFI’s chief executive, Catherine Murphy. “This is an outrageous claim designed to push the Wilderness Society’s main agenda – to destroy the environmentally sustainable timber industry which employs over 130 000 Australians. There are no moves at all to have Australian timber products banned, as the Wilderness Society claims. The United Kingdom is simply reviewing the international forestry certification body, the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), of which the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) is a member,” said Mrs. Murphy. The Australian Forestry Standard was developed through an initiative of the Australian and state and territory governments. AFS certified timber comes from forests that are guaranteed to be legally and sustainably managed. The state government forests in Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland are all certified under the AFS, and many of Australia’s major timber companies have received AFS certification. In a statement last week, the UK environment minister, Elliot Morley, confirmed that “the UK government would continue to accept the PEFC scheme as a source of legal and sustainable timber, and that suppliers can continue to offer PEFC timber as legal and sustainable in response to central government demand.” “The ENGOs calling for the rejection of the world’s best practice environmental forestry standard are the same groups who were part of the process in developing the agreed draft standard for public consultation, and then wilfully withdrew from subsequent processes in 2002,” said Mrs. Murphy. “The AFS Technical Committee still has two positions which remain vacant for environmental organisations to participate in AFS issues, but they refuse to be part of the process. It’s about time the Wilderness Society focused on the real issues of environmental degradation through unsustainable forestry practices in the illegal logging trade in South East Asia and Pacific Island countries,” she said.