I'm willing to bet there are landowners who would PAY to have the birch thinned in their woods.
Morons.
Chain of custody sounds nice, but it is not that easy...even for something with as little processing as this goes through. The one cutting the poles, hauling them, packaging the logs and retailing the logs also have to maintain that chain...AND (most importantly), the end user has to actually care enough to both demand that certification and be willing to pay for the certification. With traditional wood products when the big push to have them certified the demand came from non-market forces (few buyers cared...and even fewer - by far - were willing to pay). The sawmills, by and large, are the ones eating the cost in that scam. There isn't a large body within the chain on a product like these birch poles that is going to absorb the costs like the sawmills did with the stupid stuff that went down in the late 90's with forest product certification.
If there are buyers who do care, they'll feel warm and fuzzy when the ebay seller says "responsibly sourced materials".
Next thing we'll all see is people expecting us to pay them to prune and/or remove the birch trees in their yards!