We are often asked if we sell FSC teak. More and more companies are concerned about the legality of the teak garden furniture they are selling; as well more consumers have become aware of the careless social and ecological policies certain foreign regimes practice. The most frequent question is, "Does this teak come from a tropical rain forest?"

The story behind FSC teak and illegal teak from tropical rain forests…

It isn't easy to find good quality teak wood with an FSC label. Teak wood from South American plantations has certification but the availability is very limited and the quality is not as good as the most famous teak producing countries: Myanmar (previously Burma) and Indonesia.

Burmese teak is good quality teak but it comes with an ugly price. The Burmese military government uses the sale of teak wood to finance the military regime and is logging their forests in an uncontrolled frenzy. Many governments have made an official policy not to support the military regime in Myanmar. Other non-governmental organizations warn of a catastrophic ecological disaster in the coming decades if the deforestation of Myanmar continues.

Another southeast Asian country to recently enter the teak furniture market is Vietnam. They import teak wood from Africa, Laos, Cambodia and…. Burma.

• African teak wood is mostly young teak wood with a lot of sapwood and the legality of the wood is very doubtful.

• Laos and Cambodia teak is less in quality with many dead knots and definitely comes from tropical rain forests. All environmental organizations are protesting against the further logging in these countries.

Indonesian teak from teak plantations around Java….

In Asia, Indonesia is the only country producing garden furniture from plantation teak. The Dutch planted teak (Tectona Grandis) in huge quantities around Java. They started the first plantations; those same plantations still supply the wood for the current garden furniture industry in Indonesia.

The Indonesian Government controls the logging of the wood well but still some illegal logging can not be avoided. Every teak log that we purchase for use at our factory has a COC (Chain of Custody) certification number. We have such a system that controls the logs “from forests till finished product in the carton”. Because this extra measure of compliance is costly, many manufacturers choose to avoid the purchase of 100% legal teak.

We give you the guarantee that our wood is coming from Javanese plantations and that the wood has been officially purchased from Perum Perhutani, the official governmental organization that regulates the logging, administration and sales of teak wood (Tectona Grandis) from plantations. Perum Perhutani works together with projects of several Ngo’s to insure the logging is environmentally acceptable.