Thai Teak in Thailand's Furniture Industry
Thai Teak
wood construction is a style of furniture connoisseurs from around the world
have always prized hand crafted Thai Teak pieces from
Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries are
famous for the use of Thai Teak and exclusive Asian natural materials and the elegant
styles influenced by the unique cultures and lifestyles found in the region.
Thailand's furniture industry is one of the strongest in the territory due to its
superior production quality of Thai Teak, work ethic, innovative modern styling, and flexibility in
material use as well as the county's relatively calm political and economic
situation
compared to competitors in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Exotic Asian Hardwoods used in western
styles of furniture emerged in Thailand over 200 years ago,
furniture imported from France, England and Norway
during the reign of King Louis XVI were recreated and constructed from the
finest woods that could be found. The first pieces of western furniture
crafted from Asian hardwoods made
their way into the homes of Thailand's
nobility and the country's wealthiest families, with citizens of lower rank and
wealth settling for locally crafted replicas of the European pieces. Now
as Asian Families spread around the globe and are able to reach the level of
wealth that enables them to purchase the fine
Thai Teak once reserved for only nobility.
The 20th century saw Thailand
emerge as the world's premier supplier of teak wood for products constructed of
wood products. The durable hard wood being used for furniture, flooring, and the
majority used in ship production, because of the teaks unprecedented ability to
withstand the harsh environment of the worlds oceanfront communities.
Poor
resource management in combination with an unsustainable logging program, political corruption
combined with unscrupulous business practices severely eroded Thailand's supply
of teak wood. The process of deforestation contributed to a series of massive
floods, landslides and relentless topsoil erosion in Northern
Thailand. These
areas which formerly had large swathes of the tropical
trees, leading to a countrywide ban on the commercial logging of teak in 1989.
Due to the
an aggressive
reforestation program highly encouraged by The King of Thailand and sponsored by the Thailand’s main logging agency, the
state-owned Forestry Industry Organization (FIO), they now have certification of
its tree plantations as a way to reposition
Thailand's furniture
industry. The agency has a total of
160,000 hectares of tree plantations, mainly of teak, rubber, and eucalyptus. It
has chosen two plantations totaling over 320 hectares in Kanchanaburi and
Phitsanulok provinces for "certification". SmartWood, a not-for-profit
environmental group accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), is
undertaking the certification process. FSC certification would enable the FIO to
obtain access to markets in industrialized countries seeking timber from
"sustainable" and "well-managed" sources. We are all now
benefiting from these great efforts to reforest The Thai countryside with
the golden teak of the past. The Thai government will continue to aggressively
reforest every area they can possibly plant and give every incentive to
individuals and companies to support the requirements of the Thai furniture
industry. It can only be sustained with the support of all and very
uncompromising policies encouraging all to allow the Teak Forest to Thrive.
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