New buying guide for forest friendly building timbers released

Forest-Friendly Building Timbers is a new book that shows home renovators, builders and architects how to choose plantation and recycled timbers. The book profiles building products - from stumps to rafters - that don't come from native forests.

The Wilderness Society and BBC Hardware Ltd have joined forces in an historic alliance to support the book.

The Wilderness Society's National Campaign Director, Mr Alec Marr, described the book as "a very important tool in the campaign to save the last of the best of Australia's native forests".

"If this book has one simple message, it's that native forest logging and woodchipping should be seen in the same light as whaling. The environmental cost is too high, and there are alternative products that can do the same job," said Mr Marr.

Referring to the battle to save Australia's remaining ancient forests, Mr Marr said: "No issue has mobilised so many people. Hundreds of thousands of people have written letters, lobbied politicians, marched in the streets, sat up trees, and voted politicians in and out of office. When neither of the major political parties are listening, we need new methods. There are ethical choices when buying timber".

Conservation groups have long recognised the need to cease all logging in native forests, and this book shows that industry is finding ways to help achieve this aim.

"From today onwards no building project need ever use native forest timbers, and none should. We have drawn a line in the sand with this book, and we're saying to Australians that if you care about native forests and native animals, then don't make your house a museum of rare native timbers. Our wildlife need native forests for their homes, but we can use plantation timber for our homes. If you buy native timber products after today, you do it in the full knowledge that you have an ethical, ecological alternative. This book will help clarify the forest debate, because from now on, you're either pro-native forest logging, or you're against it," says the book's co-editor, Mr Alan T Gray.

Plantations are simply tree farms, like wheat fields, which can be regrown with fast-growing timber species. A plantation grows timber at 10 to 40 times the rate of a native forest.

"People may think that a pine plantation looks boring, but a freshly-logged native forest looks worse," he said.

"This consumer guide can save forests, because if we can vote with our wallets by only buying plantation or recycled timbers, there's no longer any justification for woodchipping or native forest sawlogging," said Mr Gray.

The book profiles plantation and recycled timber products obtainable around Australia from hardwares, timber suppliers and recycled timber yards. It also includes an invaluable "don't list" of timbers to avoid.

* Forest-Friendly Building Timbers is available in more than 2000 newsagents throughout Australia, as well as in BBC Hardware shops. It is sold in Wilderness Society shops, and is distributed to specialist bookshops and outlets by Gemcraft Books of Burwood, Melbourne. Naturally, it is printed on plantation-grown paper.

ISBN: 0 9586397 0 1. 80 pages, RRP $9.95. Co-editors: Alan T. Gray & Anne Hall.