THE Swedish furniture chain Ikea has been accused of felling trees up to 600 years old from protected woodlands to make flat-pack furniture.

As a result, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which promotes the responsible management of the world’s woodlands, has stripped Swedwood, Ikea’s forestry subsidiary, of certification confirming that wood cut from forests in Russia is being harvested sustainably.

The move comes after an audit of Swedwood’s operations in north Karelia, near the Russian-Finnish border, which is home to one of Europe’s last great forests.

Swedwood has leases to log 700,000 acres provided it avoids old trees and does not clear steep slopes, which erode without tree cover.

However, an audit found a number of “major deviations” from the rules, including the harvesting of