What to look for

Our concern here is the maintenance of forests and of the continued biodiversity of their ecosystems. Hence harvesting of trees should be sustainable: when removed for lumber, the ecosystem of which they are a part should be able to recover rapidly. Likewise, forest management should be handled in such a way that human societies which depend on the forest are not adversely affected by logging operations. We also encourage the use of environmentally-sound alternatives to recently-logged timber.

In this directory we follow – with some slight modification - the definition of Environmentally Preferable Products given in the Canada Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes programme (as launched in 2009:Mar). As this programme changes, the criteria here may also be expected to change.

Acceptable categories of lumber include the following

1. timber from Forestry Stewardship Council approved sources in Saskatchewan or neighbouring provinces/territories, as recorded in the definitive list on the FSC Canada website.
2. timber from from small woodlots within Saskatchewan which
   1. do not practice clear-cutting,
   2. do not use unacceptable pesticides (pesticides which are banned by international agreement, OR are persistent, OR are toxic, OR whose derivatives remain biologically active and accumulate in the food chain beyond their intended use),
   3. respect longterm tenure and use rights in the forest, including those of indigenous people.
3. reclaimed lumber
4. lumber substitutes fabricated from recycled plastic
5. lumber substitutes from organic fibrous material
6. in the case of siding, sheathing and trim, timber-based products with a high recycled content.

The category which applies is included in brackets after the name of the company or organisation in the vendors list below.

In planning a project, the requirements set out in the locally-applicable building code (if any) should be noted. This may rule out some otherwise apparently suitable timbers.