The precious and versatile vegetable tissue known as cork is the outer bark of the cork oak tree, not the trunk, as people might think.

The tree quickly forms new layers of cork and restores its protective barrier.

No tree is cut down. This simple fact makes cork exceptionally sustainable, leading to a unique balance between people and nature.

More than 100.000 people in the seven Mediterranean region countries depend directly or indirectly on cork for their livelihoods.

Cork is a vital source of rural jobs, with labour often divided between cork harvesting and general forestry, as well as industrial processing.

Source: World Wide Fund for Nature