Really? I've never seen it in the US, except in the form of wooden coffee stirrers.
But wooden objects do biodegrade within human time scales if just left in a meadow. The same is true of polylactic acid objects. Neither wooden nor PLA objects break down in a home composting system like orange peels do, but both biodegrade much faster than e.g. polystyrene.
It's not unusual in the UK.