South Cone plan aims to preserve Amazon forests, indigenous people
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, November 19, 2001
GARDENA, Calif. — GARDENA, Calif. — High-end case goods and accessories vendor South Cone Trading Co. has launched a permanent program to sustain forest resources in the Peruvian Amazon, where it sources most of its wood.
Partnerships and Technology for Sustainability is a more formal and permanent form of the "Giving Back" programs South Cone launched three years ago. It aims to give Peruvians the chance for economic advancement through job skills training and forest resource education, and to protect the tropical forests in Peru.
Sustainability means managing the cultivation and harvest of trees to keep a forest producing wood for years to come.
As part of the effort, South Cone will work with retailers and other manufacturers to help them educate consumers about forest management issues so they'll take environmental responsibility into account when they buy wood products.
But much of the work is on the ground in Peru. At 120,000 square feet, South Cone's main plant in Peru is that country's largest furniture factory, said Gerry Cooklin, the manufacturer's president and a native of Peru. The company also has a plant in Argentina.
"In Peru we've been working with local conservation and development organizations," Cooklin said. "We want to work with as many people as possible to ensure responsible forest management, and to prove that forest management is economically and socially viable."
Amy Smith has joined South Cone as program coordinator for PaTS. She had spent several years in Peru working with the World Wildlife Fund.
"PaTS promotes the use of sustainable woods and forest management to add value to local labor and their final products," Smith said.
South Cone already has invested $300,000 on research and development, hiring foresters and identifying a work site for the first PaTS project, called Conservation Makes Cents. That program will work in an area of the Peruvian rain forest to educate the locals about how they can improve their lives by getting more economic benefit from the wood species in the forests.
"We have focused our efforts because our industry uses wood, we use resources, and we need to give the poor an alternative to slash and burn for firewood," Cooklin said. "In order to make money they're going to use the only resource they have — their land."
South Cone itself is working to set an example. The company just received chain-of-custody certification from the Forest Stewardship Council, an international non-profit organization that supports environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests.
That means South Cone uses lumber from forests that meet a rigorous set of logging, timber removal, and reforestation standards.
Cooklin emphasized the FSC is not about leaving tropical forests alone, but giving them economic value to ensure their survival.
"If we keep going at the current rate, the tropical forest will be gone in 75 years," he said. "FSC wants to use the forest, but use it right … and leave more dollars and economic benefits with the natives of the jungle."
A critical PaTS goal is to enlist the support of the private sector for sustainable development. Cooklin hopes to inspire similar programs among other companies sourcing raw materials in tropical forests. He pointed to the example of Home Depot, an FSC member.
Private-sector participation in conservation is key, he said, since environmental efforts such as the Sierra Club or Nature Conservancy do good work but rely too much on support from others.
"Those organizations are great, but the problem with those efforts is that there isn't a loop connecting them to the market," he said. "Sustainable means something that can live on its own and not be supported by outside funds.
"The furniture industry is the highest value-added level of the wood sector. We're trying to create a market for new woods so people aren't clear-cutting just to get a few mahogany trees."
| Cooklin |
| Smith |
| This mahogany armoire with raised diamond motifs is among the products South Cone will make from woods certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. |
