ANKARA

A Turkish furniture manufacturing company hopes to “pay back its debt to nature” through an ambitious tree-planting campaign, according to company officials.

Istanbul-based Asortie Furniture decided to step up its ongoing tree-planting drive following the recent outbreak of intense bushfires in Australia that have devastated much of the world’s largest temperate woodland.

As a result of the ongoing wildfires, an estimated 8 million hectares of the forested area have reportedly been completely destroyed and millions of animals killed, along with 25 people.

Asortie Furniture first launched its tree-planting campaign three years ago with a view to “giving back what we receive from nature.”

The company aims to plant one tree in Turkey for every single one of its customers, both in Turkey and at its other branches in Ukraine, Serbia and Dubai.

Murat Erat, chairman of the firm’s executive board, is the first to admit that the furniture industry, which uses large amounts of lumber to manufacture its products, “owes nature a lot.”

Australia’s bushfires, he said, served to raise awareness in Turkey, which has seen significant amounts of its own green areas destroyed by fire in recent years.

“The recent forest fires [in Australia] have deeply saddened the whole world,” Erat was quoted as saying in a press release issued earlier this week.

The ongoing fires, he went on to note, “show we do not have any time to lose; that we must repay our debt to nature.”

According to Erat, the company has planted more than 3,000 saplings so far as part of its ongoing re-greening campaign.