K-1: Wood anatomy - the role of macroscopic and microscopic wood identification to combat illegal logging and trading

Abstract

Illegal logging is one of the main causes of worldwide deforestation and, by releasing green-house-relevant gasses, contributes to climate change. Moreover, trade with illegal timber and wood products creates market disadvantages for products from sustainable forestry. As a contribution to global forest protection international laws and timber regulations are enacted, such as the USA Lacey Act, the European Timber regulation (EUTR) and, the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act in Australia. All these regulations prohibit the import and trade of illegally logged wood and require that timber and timber products have to be produced in accordance with the respective national legislation. Controls are based on a due diligence system which requires the correct declaration of the wood genus/species (botanical name) and origin. The clear identification of internationally traded timber is also of prime importance in enforcing CITES policies regarding protected species, e.g., the entire Dalbergia species = Rosewood or Swietenia spp. = True Mahogany (Koch et al. 2011). In the context of these important requirements and new challenges wood anatomy provides the most valuable support for practical wood identification and is routinely applied in the daily control of wood and wood products. Using light microscopic techniques, up to 100 anatomical characters can be used following the internationally standardized IAWA lists of "Microscopic Features for Hardwood and Softwood Identification". Overall, the microscopic descriptions of about 8,700 taxa of hardwoods are currently available and documented in several computerized databases, e.g., InsideWood or Commercial timbers, macroHOLZdata and CITESwoodID (Delta-Intkey-System), and XyloTron (Richter et. al. 2003, Hermanson & Wiedenhoeft 2011, Wheeler 2011).