STERLING, Va. — The American Hardwood Export Council’s launched the American Hardwood Assured, an initiative aimed to assure end users that U.S. hardwood is both legally sourced and deforestation-free.

AHEC contracted Dovetail Partners of Minneapolis to conduct jurisdictional risk of illegality associated with hardwood production of 37 hardwood producing states. The jurisdictional risk assessments are intended to support due diligence under emerging regulations, including the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). 

Each assessment evaluated the strength and effectiveness of forest federal and individual state governance systems, including laws, enforcement, monitoring, reporting, and legal recourse, to determine the level of compliance established across indicators in the AHA framework.

Dovetail Partner’s assessment concluded that illegal logging is both extremely rare and contributes less than 1 percent of the wood supply to U.S. hardwood mills.

The new American Hardwood Assured website states that it can “provide U.S. based companies exporting U.S. hardwood products with a straightforward procedure to quickly prepare standardized AHA Statements for their export consignments.”

“Users can quickly link this data with their own contact details, details of the customer receiving the consignment, the quantity of U.S. hardwoods contained in the consignment, and details of the product including harmonized system code and description, trade name and full scientific species name.”

Downloads of the endorsement summary and full assessment are available for each of the 37 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

U.S. exporters can use the AHA platform and tools free of charge through at least 2027 due to funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and support from AHEC members.

Learn more about AHA and sign up for a free account at hardwood.us.