Sanctioned Russian and Belarusian wood smuggled into UK, study suggests

Russian timber at Segezha’s plant in Lesosibirsk. The head of the UK timber trade association says ‘the bulk of it is going to be from Russia, breaching sanctions.’ Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty

Nearly half of birch wood certified by leading sustainability schemes is misidentified and does not come from the labelled country of origin, according to new testing. The analysis raises fears that large quantities of sanctioned wood from Russia and Belarus are still illegally entering Britain.

New research by World Forest ID, a consortium of research organisations that includes Kew Gardens and the World Resources Institute, scrutinised the accuracy of dozens of harvesting-origin claims on birch products, which had almost entirely been approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) sustainability schemes.