We’re committed to sustainable and responsible forestry.
We want to develop the economy, improve living conditions & look after people living in & around our concessions.
We’re proud to be the longest holder of FSC® certification in the Congo Basin. Our forest concessions in the Republic of Congo cover around 2 million hectares and around 1.8 million hectares are FSC® certified. We maintain and protect the rest as a conservation area.
How We Protect
A quarter of the area of our certified concessions is permanently protected from forest operations, reserved for the communities and as protected areas. In the harvestable areas, we’re committed to strictly applying Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) techniques, meaning we intensively plan, carefully implement, and do not fell every tree in the area. We harvest at levels significantly below those permitted by national regulations - approximately one tree per hectare every 30 years.
Minimising Road Development
While road development is important to supporting timber operations, we minimise it by closing temporary roads after harvesting. To reduce the impact of temporary access, we’ve developed a digital approach using GPS mapping and customised algorithms to identify the shortest route, protect indigenous trees and minimise damage to young ones. By removing human error, it saves time and fuel, and has significantly reduced the total distance of trails built since its implementation in 2018.
Protecting Wildlife
We support eco-guards employed by the government and other organisations to prevent illegal logging and poaching of animals. Partnering with the international NGO, the Wildlife Conservation Society, we run sensitisation campaigns to educate employees and communities about the importance of environment protection, and the laws around this. We maintain dedicated areas within our concessions so that indigenous people can continue to carry out traditional hunting of small game for their family in the local area.
Water, Chemical & Waste Management
We care about each step in our timber operations – this includes protecting and managing water quality. Our wastewater treatment plant ensures all water used at our sawmills and facilities meets water quality standards before leaving the plant. We analyse all water samples at our on-site laboratory and have these checked and verified independently. We don’t use any hazardous and prohibited chemicals and are committed to minimising the usage of all chemicals across our timber operations.
Fire Prevention & Management
Due to the permanent semi-humid climate, the risk of fire in Congo's forests is low. However some forests in proximity to savannahs may pose a potential risk. As part of our forest management plans (last reviewed in May 2020), we’ve put in place a fire response and management procedure to prevent and respond to fire hazards in industrial sites.
Through our continued engagement, we’re raising awareness of fire-risks, and we monitor for incidents of fire with the local communities, which in some instances means the burning for land preparation for subsistence agriculture.
