Highly durable tropical hardwood for decking is unmatched for natural beauty and reduces deck replacement and the need for preservative treatment with metals or toxic chemicals. The main cause of tropical deforestation is clearing land for crops and cattle, not harvesting lumber. Legal, sustainable forestry represents the best land-use value, relative to slash and burn practices. With reasonable market prices and consumer support for tropical lumber products, the practice of converting tropical forest to grazing grounds or farms, which exhaust their agricultural use in a few years and remain barren after that, becomes less attractive. American Lumber’s tropical hardwood suppliers are affiliated with organizations dedicated to environmental forestry practices such as the Forestry Stewardship Council and the Tropical Forest Foundation. In addition, government agencies overseeing exportable timber (such as IBAMA, in Brazil) require land management plans identifying the specific trees to be harvested and utilizing minimal-footprint logging roads that barely break the rainforest canopy. NAHB GREEN BUILDING GUIDELINES LEED CATEGORIES
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