Forest Stewards: Gat Creek Is Certified Sustainable & Legal by AHMI
It is simply a fact of life that not everything is what it appears to be. And that can be especially true with the furniture you buy.
“In furniture manufacturing, lumber is quite often purchased from around the world,” says Tom Inman, president of Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers, Incorporated. “Unfortunately, that lumber could have been harvested illegally, with little or no consideration for the long term health of the resource and the environment that sustains it. For consumers who recognize that their purchase decisions greatly impact this issue, looking for our certification is a vital step they can take to make a difference.”
Gat Creek is proud to earn the designation Certified Sustainable & Legal by the AHMI as reassurance that our products are crafted from hardwood harvested from the Appalachian region. In fact, our lumber comes from within a 250-mile radius of our workshop.
“That’s an important consumer benefit for several reasons,” Inman explains. “The entire Appalachian region comprises 12 states and 344 counties. Lumber harvested here shares important traits. It means the trees grew at an elevation of 1,000 feet or more, in remarkably similar soil, weather and growing seasons. It’s the only place in the world where these influences come together and the result is a consistency of grain, color and durable fiber characteristics that make it exceptional for crafting furniture.”
What’s truly remarkable is that a resource so special has not only remained stable, but has actually grown over the past decades. The AHMI uses US Forest Service data that is collected every seven years to monitor the health of the Appalachian forests. “They count the number of trees growing, those dying naturally and those harvested,” says Inman. “And what the data show is just astonishing. We have a growth to removal ratio of 2.4 to 1.”
In short, ours is a unique and thriving resource that we have been utterly committed to protecting since day one. “That’s why this certification is so important,” Inman says. “Throughout the supply chain it documents that the manufacturer and all their suppliers acquired their lumber from this region.”
You can learn more about the important work of the AHMI at their website: http://appalachianhardwood.org/