Deforestation in Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia © Albert Bansa / Friends of the Earth
A new report by Friends of the Earth UK, RimbaWatch, and Earthsight confirms what we and our partners have been documenting for years: timber certification in Malaysia is failing to protect forests or uphold Indigenous rights. In the report, Tainted Timber, they trace how wood linked to deforestation and rights abuses is still entering UK markets under the guise of “sustainable” certification.
This latest analysis builds on RimbaWatch’s 2025 report The Trouble with Timber and reinforces the findings of our 2023 report, Lost in Certification, produced with Bruno Manser Fonds. In that report, we exposed how the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) – endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) – was used to greenwash destructive logging by companies like Samling in Sarawak, despite ongoing environmental damage and unresolved conflicts with Indigenous communities.
The new findings show these are not isolated cases. Across Peninsular Malaysia, certified forests are still being cleared, sensitive ecosystems degraded, and Indigenous rights violated – while auditors fail to acknowledge or misrepresent these conflicts. At least nine cases involving Indigenous Orang Asli communities were mishandled or ignored entirely.
Meanwhile, this timber continues to flow into international markets under a “sustainable” label. The report traces Malaysian wood to major UK companies with an estimated £177 million in products imported in 2025 alone.
From Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia, the pattern is clear: weak oversight, conflicts of interest, and opaque governance structures are allowing certification to function as a tool of greenwashing rather than accountability.
As the EU moves forward with the EU Deforestation Regulation, governments and companies can no longer rely on flawed certification systems as proof of sustainability. Real accountability must be grounded in independent verification, respect for Indigenous rights, and the exclusion of timber linked to deforestation – whether deemed “legal” or not.