MARINE TIMBER WHY TEAK'S TIME IS UP

Jessie Rogers looks at the challenges faced by the yachting industry in sourcing teak that is both legal and sustainable, and considers the latest alternatives now available

- Jessie Rogers

Choosing the most sustainable options for your boat can leave you feeling confused, but don’t worry, you’re in good company. Shortly after Jeff Bezos launched his Earth Fund programme – a 10 billion dollar initiative to conserve nature and combat climate change – his yacht, Koro, was launched, covered in expanses of beautiful teak decking. The yacht’s Dutch builder, Oceanco defended its use by stating that ‘all teak used on our projects meets EU requirements and is third-party verified to ensure due diligence’.

Whilst verifying the environmental credentials of teak from Myanmar has long been recognised as a difficult issue, in 2021 a brutal military coup changed everything. No longer was teak from Myanmar just an environmental issue, it was now a human rights disaster too. The EU, UK, US, Canada and Switzerland imposed sanctions on the country to prevent money reaching the military junta via sales of the state-controlled timber monopoly. Sadly the sanctions seem not to be working. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a charity dedicated to exposing environmental destruction, used open-source EU import data to track millions of dollars’ worth of Myanmar teak arriving into the EU in 2021, followed by another 2,000 tonnes between February and November 2022 and recent data from the US show that imports have continued there too.