The good foresters: Inside the Gabonese rainforest supplying Amsterdam’s lock gates
Lock gates have always been an essential part of Amsterdam. It only became liveable when the River Amstel was dammed to hold back the salty waters of the IJ. Now the city has 200 sets of mainly wooden lock gates, offering an increasingly important defence as sea levels rise. These fine pieces of woodwork come from a far more distant source than the 12th century fisherman who made Amsterdam’s first lock could have dreamed of: the Congo Basin. More specifically, they’re made of Azobé wood from Gabon \- a tropical timber renowned for its strong, water-resistant properties and used for everything ...