Where material from multiple sources is aggregated or mixed, European Commission guidance allows a due diligence statement to declare more possible plots than actually contributed to the product, subject to the applicable conditions. AHA’s harvest-site GeoJSON is designed to identify a pool of possible source sites for the relevant counties and period. The EU operator must assess the information for all sites it declares and determine whether its due diligence statement meets EUDR requirements.

No. An AHA Statement and its associated files bring together information intended to support due diligence, including possible source areas and AHA’s independent risk assessments. They do not guarantee regulatory compliance or acceptance by a competent authority. Each relevant supply-chain participant remains responsible for the information it provides and for meeting its own legal obligations.

Where AHA identifies a specified risk relevant to a county from which a consignment may have originated, the platform requires the user to record the risk-mitigation measures taken. These details appear on the AHA Statement. The recipient must consider whether the information and measures are sufficient for its own due diligence.

AHA assesses deforestation risk at county level and legality risk at state level. The harvest-site GeoJSON provides location information; it is not a published risk rating for each site. A listed location must not be treated as a determination of land ownership, Tribal jurisdiction, treaty rights or cultural significance.

Yes. AHA’s independent state assessments provide evidence about the risk of illegal harvesting in the U.S. states from which a consignment may have originated. U.S. harvesting rules and the documents associated with a lawful harvest vary by state and circumstance; there is no single permit required for every private harvest. An EU operator should review the relevant AHA assessments alongside the AHA “Framework for Jurisdictional Risk Assessment (JRA) of Legal Compliance of Hardwood Production in the USA” and any other supply-chain information to which they have access.

On this basis, and taking account of the latest EUDR guidance, they must decide whether the evidence is “adequately conclusive and verifiable” to demonstrate negligible risk of illegal harvest, the standard of evidence required by EUDR.

Official EUDR Guidance (C(2026) 4972 final, 13.7.2026, Section 6: Legality, Page 9) states that “for supply chains, production areas and countries of production where the initial examination of available information indicates a negligible risk of non-compliance with Article 3(b) [legal harvest], operators should not be required to carry out an in-depth data collection. For instance, they should not be required to systematically collect comprehensive legal documentation for each individual plot of land, to obtain specific types of documents such as individual land titles, or to compile an exhaustive list of all potentially relevant laws, legal documents or data.”

The harvest-site GeoJSON may be accessed, used or disclosed only where reasonably required to facilitate EUDR conformance for the consignment identified in its AHA Statement. Within that purpose, it may be shared with the named customer, authorised representatives, relevant service providers subject to appropriate restrictions, and competent authorities where reasonably necessary or legally required. It must not be published or reused for unrelated purposes such as mapping individual harvest activity, timber prospecting, supplier intelligence, research or AI training without AHEC’s prior written authorization. Recipients must protect the data and keep the Data Use Notice with the Statement and GeoJSON when transmitting either to an authorised recipient.

AHEC may receive business and account contact details of registered AHA users, including the company’s name, address and EIN and the contact details of its representatives, for account management and related purposes. The platform’s technical operator, BWA, does not share information about individual consignments with AHEC. AHEC may receive aggregate statistics about platform use presented so that consignments cannot be associated with an individual operator. The AHA Platform Privacy Policy explains the circumstances in which authorised service providers, auditors or authorities may also access information.

No. The platform currently covers U.S. hardwood products. It is available to eligible U.S.-based businesses engaged in the U.S. hardwood export supply chain.

AHA combines information supplied by users with independent assessments of deforestation risk at county level and legality risk at state level. Users must identify the counties from which hardwood in a consignment may have originated and provide details of mitigation where a specified risk applies. AHA is developing further assurance measures in phases, including a Proof of Provenance procedure and a integrity management system. Users remain responsible for the accuracy of information they enter, while recipients must assess whether the resulting evidence is sufficient for their purposes.

AHA has introduced an additional data layer that identifies real and potential hardwood harvest sites within source U.S. counties during the relevant 12-month period. Users and customers receiving AHA Statements can generate a separate GeoJSON file containing those geolocations. The first version of the harvest site data layer launched on 15 October 2026 and will be updated annually. AHA continues to offer a county-boundary GeoJSON option and to assess deforestation risk at county level.

The two serve different purposes. Counties provide a practical scale for AHA’s independent deforestation-risk assessment across a fragmented supply chain. The harvest-site data layer is intended to help users provide the more detailed geolocation information called for under current EUDR guidance. AHA continues to advocate for recognition of county-level geolocation as a proportionate approach where independent evidence demonstrates negligible risk.

No. The harvest-site GeoJSON identifies the comprehensive pool of real and potential sites within the selected counties from which the hardwood could have originated during the relevant period. The actual source is expected to comprise one or more sites in that pool, but AHA generally cannot link a particular board, component or proportion of a consignment to a particular site. Inclusion of a site does not mean that it supplied the consignment, only that it is one of a pool of potential sites.

No. An AHA Statement and its associated files bring together information intended to support due diligence, including possible source areas and AHA’s independent risk assessments. They do not guarantee regulatory compliance or acceptance by a competent authority. Each relevant supply-chain participant remains responsible for the information it provides and for meeting its own legal obligations.