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Commonwealth
Forests | | |
 FOREST LAW, ENFORCEMENT AND GOVERNANCE (FLEG)
The threat to sustainable forest management has already been described in Chapter 2. This
section describes the international background to the problem.
The G8, meeting in Birmingham, England in May 1998, launched the G8 Action Programme on
Forests, and considered the impact of illegal forest activities so great that a resolution (VI) was
included to reduce illegal logging2. The preamble stated: Illegal logging robs national
and sub-national governments, forest owners and local communities of significant revenues and
benefits, damages forest ecosystems, distorts timber markets and forest resource
assessments and acts as a disincentive to sustainable forest management. Illegal logging has
continued to be mentioned in the final communiqué of more recent meetings, for example the
Gleneagles summit of 2005 (see CFA Newsletter #30 of September 2005).
Besides the G8 Action Programme on Forests other international action has included:
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Forest Law, Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) Conferences in East Asia 2001, Africa
2003, Europe & N. Asia 2005 •
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EU Forest Law, Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT)
Action Plan, 2003 - the heart of which is legislation to require evidence of legality at point of
import
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USA President's Initiative against Illegal Logging, 2003
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G8 Environment/Development
Ministerial 2005
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Discussions in other fora including ITTO, CITES, CBD, WSSD, FAO,
UNECE, WTO.
Action by the UK, the world's fourth biggest net importer of timber, illustrates some of the
challenges and options in tackling illegal logging. Seventy one per cent of UK timber volume is
imported, of which only 6.5% is from the tropics, mainly plywood and hardwoods. The UK
government will now only buy timber from legal and sustainable sources3, while big building
companies, which account for 70% of consumption, are adopting the same policy.
The Timber Trades Federation4, which represents the timber industry in the UK, is taking
action through:
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an Indonesian Action Plan (with the Netherlands and Belgium);
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the EU Euro7million Timber Trade Initiative (UK, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Malaysia,
Indonesia) under which audited timber now comes from 183 mills and forests;
-
sourcing
verified legal timber from 147 mills in Indonesia, Malaysia, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and
Cameroon;
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a responsible purchasing policy; (assessment of supplier base, risk management
system, advice to suppliers, building credibility through independent auditing, alternative
evidence of legality/ sustainability, elimination of potentially illegal suppliers)
Action is clearly being taken by some Commonwealth countries to combat illegal logging and
to promote good governance of forests. But there is a long way to go and more international
commitment to collaboration is required.
2 The full text of the Action Programme is available from the website of the meeting
of Foreign
and Finance Ministers before the Summit.
http://web.archive.org/web/19981212012854/http://birmingham.g8summit.gov.uk/
3 See
CFA
Newsletter #27 December 2004
4 UK Timber Trade Federation http://www.ttf.co.uk
and CFA
Newsletter #30 of September 2005
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