trade & environment case study: international timber trade
Post on 01-Jan-2016
39 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Trade & environment
Case study: International Timber trade
Trade & environment
Case study: International Timber trade
Trends in High Risk timber imports fromEU FLEGT countries, China and other tropical Africa
• Forest destruction roughly 20% of global GHG emissions.
• Illegal logging serious env. and social damage.
• Costing governments an estimated $10 billion every year in lost revenues.
• It is estimated that up to 50 per cent of tropical hardwood imported into Europe is from illegal sources
Sources: EC briefing notes 2007, WWF UK 2005
Initatives to combat illegal timber trade
international agreements
regional agreements: EU- FLEGT – Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade
national legislation
non-legal maesures
Cortesy of
Johannes Enssle
M.Sc. Global Change Management
EU FLEGT Action Plan
• EU programme to combat illegal logging and trade by influencing both demand and supply.
• Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with producer countries:1. Governance reforms 2. Measures to regulate and control timber trade3. Measures that verify legality of products
• Measures to increase demand for legal timber: 1. Public procurement policies2. Private sector initiatives, eg Timber Assoc. Codes3. Financing and investment, eg lending criteria4. Awareness raising: Forum C.Africa, China, C.America
FLEGT Action Plan: in more detail
Focuses on 6 broad areas:
1. Support to timber-producing countries
2. Activities to promote trade in legal timber
3. Promoting public procurement policies
4. Support for private sector initiatives
5. Financing and investment
6. Use of existing legislative instruments or adoption of new legislation to support the Plan
• binding bilateral agreement between the EU and a Partner Country
• improving governance: – measures to build capacity, – improve control and monitoring, – enhance transparency – support measures to mitigate any negative impacts on poor people
• Export licenses for the EU based on legality verification
• Secured and improved EU market access
Voluntary Partner Agreements (VPA)
Legality Assurance System (LAS )
• FLEGT licensing requires a Legality Assurance System (LAS) which has 5 components– A definition of legally-produced timber– A system to verify compliance with definitions– A system to trace products from forest to export– A licensing system for exports– Independent monitoring of all components
EU FLEGT licensing scheme: current negotiations
• VPAs currently restricted to: Malaysia, Indonesia, Ghana, Cameroon and Kongo-Brazaville
• But only with Malaysia negotiations entered into an official phase of negotiation
Critiques from NGOs
• FLEGT does not prevent illegal timber going via third countries such as China and ending up in the EU.
• FLEGT does not cover pulp or paper - responsible for a significant proportion of the EU's timber imports.
• WWF is calling for EU-wide legislation to prohibit the importation of illegal timber into the EU, regardless of the country of origin.
(WWF 2005)
top related