Shoppers might pay next to nothing for those cheapy cheap tables and chairs and bookshelves at IKEA, but the planet pays a much higher price, Environmental Leader reports. According to a forest conservation nonprofit, an IKEA subsidiary is clear-cutting forests that are hundreds of years old.
[The Global Forest Coalition] — an alliance of NGOs from more than 40 countries — alleges that Ikea’s wholly owned logging subsidiary Swedwood has been clear-cutting forests in high biodiversity value areas and logging very old trees in parts of the Russian Karelia region.
In IKEA’s defense, the average age of the trees it harvested in that area is 160 years. Okay, that is actually a shitty defense, but it’s the defense IKEA is offering — “Well, we’re not going to say we aren’t cutting down some serious granddaddy trees, but ON AVERAGE they are only quite old instead of mega-old!”
Oh, and also the company also says it’s kept logging out of “a far greater proportion of land than legally required.” We’re not exactly impressed by that, considering Russia’s record of environmental protection.
