Buying wooden furniture

Be very careful who you buy wooden furniture from - a report in today's Independent (see here) highlights how some unscrupulous companies exploit loopholes in the law allowing them to brand wood from endangered forests in South East Asia as FSC-certified.

We nearly fell into this trap recently when looking for a patio set for the garden. By holding off the purchase until yesterday we were able to pick up a metal and glass set for under £50 from Focus - a lot less than we might have paid had we not been determined to make sure anything we bought had the required FSC symbol. Now even the FSC name is being abused, I'll have to think twice about any wood-based purchase.

EDIT: it gets worse. Guess what? Even Bush has imposed sanctions against these illegal imports, yet Blair and the EU does nothing. Worse still, the government has been caught using illegal timber on its building sites. See this secondary article in the Independent, here.