A single splinter of wood can now be traced back, via its DNA fingerprint, to the site of its parent tree on the other side of the world with a powerful new tool designed to stop illegal logging.
A Singapore company, Double Helix Tracking Technologies, is attempting to get its wood tracking method adopted by the federal government, which pledged during the election campaign to crack down on illegal timber imports.
The Australian imported wood market is flooded with timber that was cut down outside designated logging areas, or outside agreed environmental controls.
About 10 per cent of all imported wood products used in Australia, including sawn logs, wood panels, furniture and pulp and paper, are thought to have been obtained illegally, a recent government report says.
But the ability to precisely identify the source of each log in a batch shipped through a Customs point has the potential to change the global foresty trade.
Each tree, like each human or animal, has a unique genetic signature, but groves of trees are usually related to each other like an extended family containing grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This allows researchers to cross-reference one log’s DNA pattern with an existing database of sensitive logging regions around the world.
”You are talking about a wood sample about the size of a thumbnail, and you get the result within 24 to 48 hours,” the Australian founder of Double Helix, Kevin Hill, said at a conference in Melbourne organised by Forestworks, an industry body.
At present, the tests are done at a University of Adelaide laboratory by the company’s chief scientist, Professor Andrew Lowe, who is also involved in a project to pinpoint the source of 500-year-old oak used to build the English king Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose.
Each test costs a few hundred dollars, so would only be likely to used when the provenance of a wood shipment was already in doubt. A similar, less expensive test for valuable furniture items is also being developed.
