The AHA Platform enables consignments of U.S. hardwood to be accompanied by the documentation required to demonstrate legal and deforestation-free origin, including geolocation data. The key components of the system include:
An annually updated quantitative assessment of the risk of conversion of deciduous and mixed deciduous/coniferous forest to agricultural land, at the level of individual counties in the United States;
Independent third-party assessments of the risk of illegal harvesting in the U.S. hardwood-producing states;
An AI-powered harvest site detection system that combines and analyses data across different spectral brands from satellite imagery to identify hardwood harvest sites and distinguish them from other forms of forest disturbance, such as fires and pest damage;
An online web portal to make this data freely accessible to U.S. hardwood mills and other operators engaged in the U.S. hardwood trade;
A Proof of Provenance (PoP) procedure for hardwood mills, downstream distributors, exporters, and manufacturers to ensure that the legal and deforestation-free claim is applied only to assured U.S. hardwood and;
Systematic testing of assured U.S. hardwood products using advanced wood identification technologies – specifically Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA), and Trace Element Analysis (TEA) – to help protect system integrity and improve efficiency by allowing field audits to be targeted on higher-risk supply chains.
Learn more about the innovative work going on behind the scenes.
