Welcome news from Australia this week as the incumbent Labor Party announces its intention to ban illegal timber imports. Australia joins the United States and the European Union in adopting such a legislative approach. It’s all part of election posturing, but let’s hope the Liberal Coalition takes a similar stance in the coming days. Find out more here.

Similar to the United States, the government has been urged by a coalition of NGOs led by Greenpeace, and industry to implement legislation. DoubleHelix has also been involved in this process, having met the illegal logging policy folks at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on several occasions. One of the key industry partners named during the press conference was Simmonds Lumber, a major client of DoubleHelix and one of the first timber importers in Australia to sign up to a legality verification system.

A welcome and positive announcement from the Liberian government here, taking steps to manage their forest resources through barcode tagging.

I can’t help thinking that trying to tag every tree in the country is a little excessive though, especially when nature’s very own barcode (that’s DNA in case you’re new our site) is ready to be utilised for the very same purpose.

Nevertheless, congratulations to the government of Liberia and all involved for implementing what is probably the world’s most advanced nation-wide timber tracking system.

Are you a fan of the TV show CSI? Well although the working practices of the CSI teams may be unrealistic, we can vouch that when it comes to wood forensics, they’ve got their facts just about right.

Take CSI: New York, series 5, episode 13 that was aired in early 2009. In this case, the lead investigator finds saw-dust on the body and at the crime scene which is sent to the lab for testing in the hope that they can determine where the wood came from. Unfortunately, the lab advises that “the DNA from the tree contains endogenous chemicals that inhibit analysis.” Well they’re right, and that’s exactly the challenge we face here at Double Helix Tracking Technologies! Why is DNA extraction from wood so complicated even when scientists routinely extract DNA from human bodies?

DNA in a living tree trunk, unlike other parts of plants or parts of the human body, starts to die and degrade whilst the tree is still standing and growing. A tree trunk has three parts: outer bark, inner bark (called the cambium) and the heartwood. Whilst the heartwood is used in timber products such as furniture, decking and floors etc., it is also the dead part of the tree.

When a cell is dead, its DNA begins to degrade. It loses its structure and the DNA strands start to break up. Imagine DNA as a huge piece of paper with a complex code written on it. Degraded DNA is like the same piece of paper passed through a highly efficient shredder. The information is still there but very fragmented.

Leaving the actual identification of the DNA aside, the first challenge is for a scientist to extract the DNA. In a human or animal this is fairly easy to do this with standard laboratory chemicals. You could even extract your own DNA with salt and soap water! Wood is much more complicated because of the presence of chemicals such as Tannin. Tannin adversely reacts with the conventional chemicals used for DNA extraction, even stumping our friends at the crime lab. So one of our tasks is to develop new extraction protocols especially for wood.

Once the DNA is successfully extracted,  the next challenge is to do the actual DNA test. Fortunately we do not need to know every bit of information in that paper to complete a test. We only need to identify certain key words. In DNA lingo these key words are called ‘genetic markers’.

In a human paternity test, a laboratory may use between 8 and 13 such markers to verify a relationship. We have to find similar markers for every species of tree that we intend to verify and ensure these same markers can be extracted and identified from the dead wood.

All this and more makes wood DNA analysis extremely challenging. These are precisely the challenges the we are tackling in our own research and soon we will be able to provide the DNA evidence to back up the CSI team, at least when wood is involved.

P.S. Luckily for the CSI in the saw-dust episode, they were able to identify the species of tree, which just happened to grow in only one location in the whole of New York. Doh!

Eco-warrior Sting would be horrified.

On Tuesday November 17th, federal agents from the US Fish and Wildlife Service raided the offices of world-famous Gibson Guitars related to alleged imports of illegal wood for use in guitar frames. The story broke here.

This is the first bust associated with the new legislation called the Lacey Act amendments, which we’ve talked about elsewhere on this site.  It’s hugely significant for a number of reasons:

1. Gibson are an American music icon
The US government aren’t holding their punches here and are looking to make a high-profile example to demonstrate that they are going to enforce the new legislation. This action will certainly deliver the message loud and clear to wood importers.

2. Gibson are FSC certified
As pointed out by Gibson themselves in their statement, “Gibson is a chain of custody certified buyer who purchases wood from legal suppliers who are to follow all standards.”

This exposes a practice that many in the timber trade abuse: Get a Chain-of-Custody certificate and the perception is that you only deal in certified timber, as the quote above clearly suggests.

But in reality nothing stops firms from limiting their use of certified timber to just one or two products. The actual proportion of certified timber used may be tiny. To be fair, Gibson use quite a bit of certified timber in their products as this FSC article explains, but that still leaves a significant portion of material uncertified and potentially illegal. What this bust demonstrates is that a certificate no longer protects you if you continue to import uncertified timber from dubious sources.

3. Even the experts were taken by surprise
Gibson’s statement also says, “Gibson Guitar Chairman and CEO [Henry Juszkiewicz] sits on the board of the Rainforest Alliance and takes the issue of certification very seriously.” It was a shame none of his colleagues briefed him on the Lacey Act.

What next?
It’s not clear right now how much trouble Gibson are in. It depends on the sort of evidence the authorities have collected and whether Gibson was knowingly importing illegal timber or an innocent victim of their supplier’s dodgy dealings.

Even if innocent of knowingly importing illegal wood, Gibson can still be fined if it is shown that they didn’t exercise ‘due care and attention’ in sourcing the wood.

It is also a possibility that a lack of hard evidence will hamper efforts to prosecute this time round. That’s where DNA verification has a crucial role to play, just like it does in human criminal investigations. We can provide hard scientific evidence of the origin of the wood to support prosecutions just like these.

It’s good to hear of an event like Opportunity Green. From what I understand it aims to bring together people and organisations who are building viable businesses based on opportunities arising from the environmental movement. I’m surprised there are not more events like this. Not surprised that this is happening in California. I imagine the vibe will be a little like the early conferences discussing the potential of the Internet in the early 90s. Very exciting.

Even better, Double Helix Tracking Technologies has been selected as one of the twenty-five most innovative green start-up companies. I guess word is starting to get out there about what we’re doing. So thanks team OG25 and best of luck for the conference this coming weekend.

UPDATE: 9th November, 2009

We weren’t able to attend the conference in person, but we did send a 60 second video:

This is one for the web-savvy amongst you. Many thanks to the WPFloat.com team for showcasing doublehelixtracking.net as one of the best WordPress™ powered websites.

Thanks also to the team at Sedgwick-Richardson in Singapore who designed and set up the website for us. This is of course just the first version of the site. We’re now looking to make the site more interactive and exciting, with more content as the business makes progress.

And finally, thanks for your support! Come back soon.

Organised by the The Forest Trust , the International Timber Trade Federation Day brought together representatives from the world’s timber trade federations, timber producing countries, industry and selected others to discuss new US and EU legislation, certification and challenges brought on by the global recession.

It was a great insight into the real business challenges the industry has to face:

• how to pass on costs of certification to consumers when cheaper, uncertified timber is still widely available on the market
• how to comply with new laws in the US (Lacey Act) and EU (Due Diligence), that take very different approaches to tackling the illegal logging problem. And whilst the details and execution of these laws are still unclear, what’s the best way for the industry to adapt?

We’ll tackle these issues further in later blogs, but for now it’s obvious that ALL parties have the same objective: to eliminate illegal trade and create a level, fair global market. To find the best solution, industry, governments, service providers (certification systems and technology providers like DHTT) and NGOs must continue to work together to combine legislative and commercial solutions that make legal and sustainable trade the norm. This must be done in a way that will be embraced by the market – i.e. consumers like you and me.

Right now, we haven’t found the right solution. Given the option, most consumers buy the cheaper, uncertified wood product. This is expected when we all face buying choices with limited money. But progress is being made so that, eventually, whatever buying decision we make, we will support legitimate trade.

Into its tenth year, the British Business Awards annually recognise outstanding British businesses in Singapore and/or Singapore-based organisations with a significant UK linkage.

Darren says, “It is an honour to receive this award. My colleagues and I trust it will help to bring more recognition to the important work we are undertaking in providing a scientific system to safeguard threatened forests.”

HRH Prince Andrew presented the awards.

Darren accepts the award on behalf of the team

All the BBA 2009 Winners with Britcham President

Imagine that one could scan wood DNA just like a barcode, with a simple hand-held device which immediately references a database to tell you its origin. Well technology innovations are quickly bringing us to that point. Here’s an example:

The Human Genome Project (HGP) changed the way the scientists approached DNA analysis. Instead of looking at bits and pieces within the DNA, the HGP created innovation in DNA sequencing technologies and enabled scientists to look at entire genome.

We are exploring one such tool known as the ‘454’ sequencer for accelerating research in microsatellite markers for multiple tree species at the same time. Using the 454 it is possible to sequence up to eight different timber species for the same cost as it used to be for one, in less than half the time than before. This gives us the ability to map an entire species in a forest concession much more easily and cheaply, cost-savings that will be passed on to our clients.

Looking further ahead, we are also considering the application of Hyperspectral Imaging, a technology originally developed by NASA scientists to identify the structure and physical properties of distant stars. We may adapt it to look at DNA structure leading to instant verification of timber origin. Of course this technology is currently very expensive, but we believe that this could revolutionise the way DNA testing is conducted in the future.

Here’s a prime example of why scientific verification is necessary if we’re going to clean up the timber supply chain:

“Illegal Amazon timber passed off as eco-certified in massive wood laundering scheme“

Log laundering may sound like the cumbersome, sweaty and downright heavy relative of money laundering, but the objective is exactly the same. Take illegal stuff and disguise it so that it seems legal (in this case through document fraud), then sell it on to unsuspecting customers.

Both money and log laudering are related to organised crime, and both make huge amounts of money for a small number of people, whilst cheating the majority. Except now, we’re also being cheated of our investment in the future. (How can a forest-based carbon credit mechanism like REDD work if there is so much un-tracked ‘leakage’ from illegal logging?). Either way, we all have reason to treat forest crime much more seriously than we do now.