您正在购买新的厨房桌子。在网上浏览并参观了几家商店后，您会发现一个由固体橡木制成的美丽的六座。

At least, that’s what the label says.

The reality is that the table could be made from oak, or it could be something else entirely—even an illegally logged, rare or protected tree species.

World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Lab obtained 73 wood products from some of the most well-known wood products’ retailers in the U.S. and tested these products to determine if product claims were accurate and further, if a threatened tree species was illegal used.我们的研究发现这些产品中有62％被不准确的物种主张和/或产品索赔错误地标记。

木材产品的标签错误加剧了在森林上非法伐木的压力，伤害了生物多样性保护和温室气体排放工作。目前，缺乏能力和获得木材识别方法，以防止立法保障措施正常工作。

木材如何以及为什么贴标签？

标签错误可能会在供应链沿线的任何地方发生，并且可能是故意的或无意的。

在供应链中的初期，故意错误的标签通常用于掩盖木材的非法收获。非法收获可以超过配额，外部优惠边界或错误的物种。例如，从马达加斯加的玫瑰木种类进行贸易是非法的，但是这些木材是世界上一些最有价值，最受欢迎的木材。随后，非法伐木工人使用许多策略，包括贴错标签，掩盖非法活动，并在黑市上出售玫瑰木木材的优惠款项。

Towards the end of the supply chain, intentional mislabeling is used in retail by marketing a low value, common timber species or wood product as a high value, rare species—thereby garnering a significant profit. In this study specifically, we purchased a piece of furniture labeled as “rosewood” that, when analyzed, proved to be an inexpensive, rose-stained pine species.

Common, unintentional reasons for mislabeling are often related to inability of a lay person to differentiate between species of a wood product by eye. Even to highly trained wood anatomists, differentiating wood species can be incredibly difficult and most would agree that without significant and accurate metadata associated with the wood sample, identifying beyond genus can be impossible.

Mislabeling Illegal in the US, but Still Common

标签是故意的还是偶然的，这是对U.S. Lacey Act。The Lacey Act prohibits import, export, sale, or transport of illegal wood and wood products. The results of this study shed light on some issues in limiting the risk of mislabeled products ending up on shelves in the U.S.

一个持久的问题：零售商缺乏供应链验证的理解或对供应链的承诺。《莱西法》认为零售商的“应有照顾”的这一部分。

Another major issue is that customs officials lack the capacity to enforce the Lacey Act across retail forest products. Unlike other imported commodities, verification of species in declared wood products is close to impossible without scientific intervention.

Last, consumers are unaware of how to responsibly shop for wood products, and the impacts of purchasing illegal or high-risk wood products remain less well-known.

幸运的是，诸如我们在本研究中使用的方法之类的木材识别技术可以告诉用户该产品，包括其物种以及在某些情况下起源。如果被广泛采用，他们可以提高消费者，零售商和政府的能力，以铲除标签，并将木市场带入更可持续的实践。

如何验证木材

这项研究采用了一种称为“法医解剖学”的分析方法，专家木材解剖学家研究木材的细胞结构以验证其物种。从历史上看，这是产品索赔验证的首选方法。

However, there are only a handful of forensic wood anatomists in the world who can carry out this work. This lack of capacity, juxtaposed with how much illegal wood is being traded on the global market, makes it clear that forensic wood anatomy cannot combat the illegal trade forest products alone.

Additionalwood identification technologies开始扩大规模，很快就应该使零售商，政府和消费者更容易获得产品索赔验证，并减轻当前对世界上少数法医解剖学家的负担。但是，迫切需要对这些技术进行更深入的投资。

Companies, Governments and Consumers Must Do Better

Inaccurate species claims are made too often about consumer wood products. The above examples pose problems for consumers who increasingly want to know where their products are from, how their products are produced and whether or not they are contributing to deforestation, unfair trade, labor andhuman rights abuses。这项研究的结果表明，缺乏能力和获得木材识别方法的方法可以阻止立法保障措施正常工作。大多数责任都在于私人和政府部门采取行动，并开始研究和采用木材识别技术作为适当护理的方法。

尽管消费者受到木材欺诈的影响，但他们在帮助解决问题的步骤中受到限制。尽管如此，公众还是应该知道错误标签。负责任的购物者应尝试“适当的护理”，例如，与公司询问如何采购木材产品以及购买“认证”木材产品。

If the status quo continues, forests and consumers will suffer, especially with global demand for wood products continuing to rise.