The Policy is applicable to wood-derived products, except paper. The Policy is compulsory for all entities of the federal government, and it focuses on wood from sustainably harvested timbers. The definition includes provisions related to traceability, legality, and specific requirements for sustainable forest management certification systems.
Climate and forests are intrinsically linked. As a result of climate change, forests are stressed by higher mean annual temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and more frequent and extreme weather events. At the same time, forests mitigate climate change through uptake of carbon, and the loss of forests through land-use conversion and forest degradation causes carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change (IPCC 2014).
