Policy recommendations

  • The European Commission should adopt legislation which requires that only legally-harvested timber and timber products coming from legal sources and responsibly-managed forests be placed on the European market. Legislation should be cost-effective, fair and enforceable and should include sanctions. The primary responsibility for proving legality should rest with all companies that are importing or selling products in the EU, thus creating a level playing field and being WTO-compatible.
  • The European Commission should strengthen the FLEGT-process of supporting wood producing countries to improve forest law enforcement, tackle corruption and promote socially and environmentally responsible forest management.
  • The EU should enlarge the number of Voluntary Partnership Agreements with producing countries. A participatory multi-stakeholder process, including local communities and indigenous peoples, should be at the core of these VPAs.
  • The EU should broaden the range of products covered by VPAs to cover all timber products. 
  • The EU Member States should speed up the implementation of sustainable public procurement for wood products including social and environmental criteria. 
  • The European Commission should endeavour to bring best practices in EU countries together and give clear guidance to Member States on how they can implement sustainable procurement by developing guidelines and tools to include social and environmental criteria in public procurement.

Case: Illegal Logging

07-05-2009 EP adopts Commission proposal on illegally logged timber after substantially amending and improving it.

In October 2008, the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation that aims to prevent the placing of illegal harvested timber products on the European market. A good initiative, since legislation regarding the problem of trade in illegally logged timber has been long awaited. But, as MEP Caroline Lucas (Verts/ALE) put it: The good news is that we do finally have EU legislation; the bad news is that the Commission proposal is distressingly weak and will need comprehensive improvement in order to become meaningful and effective.(1) Luckily, the European Parliament took action: in one of the last plenary sessions and with the help of numerous amendments the proposal now has the potential to reach its goal: Operators shall ensure that only legally harvested timber and timber products are made available on the market.(2) 

Earlier this year, we reported on this website about this proposal from the Commission, which aims to finally tackle the problem of trade in illegally logged timber. A problem that not only affects forests, and thus the environment, but it also has substantial impact on local populations and indigenous peoples in developing countries.

Unfortunately, the European Commissions proposal does not address law enforcement, forest management and governance in the producing countries, but solely focuses on those timber products that enter the European market. In doing so, it fails to address the roots of the problem of illegal logging, in the timber producing countries. The EU should step up efforts to  support these countries in their struggle to fight deforestation through capacity building and supporting forest management programs. Still, even within the limited scope of the proposal, there is still a great need for clarification on certain important issues such as monitoring systems and measures,  penalties and definitions.

The European Parliament had the right to amend this proposal. The lead committee charged with reporting on this proposal was the parliamentary committee on environment, public health and food safety (ENVI) and appointed MEP Caroline Lucas (Verts/ALE) as rapporteur. The amended document was voted on by the EP on April 22,2009.  MEPs voted in favour by 465 to 22, with 187 abstentions.

The amended proposal differs essentially from the Commission proposal, and improves it substantially on issues such as monitoring and measures. It even proposes concrete penalties: seizure of timber consignments, temporary marketing prohibitions, etc.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the Parliament stressed that not only operators who place timber on the market for the first time, but all operators along the supply chain are responsible for ensuring the legality of timber products.  This means that all traders and producers should be clear about the origin of the timber.

Secondly, where the Commission proposal mainly addressed the environmental consequences of illegal logging, the EP focuses in its amended proposal also on the negative impact illegal logging can have on indigenous peoples lives. These groups often rely on the forests for their economic and social needs.

Furthermore, the EP proposes very concrete measures in the field of monitoring and controlling the operators. It proposes for example to examine the technical and managerial systems and procedures of due diligence and risk assessment that the operators use.  Besides this, the amended proposal also contains concrete penalties. Instead of only stating that the penalties must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, the EP outreaches the Commission and concretely proposes financial penalties that must reflect the degree of environmental and economical damage.

This level of clarity is also present in the definitions that this EP-amended proposal contains (legality, risk, sustainable forest management).

Moreover, this adopted proposal stresses the importance of cooperation with environmental organisations and human rights organisations in proposing to establish an Advisory Group.

According to Fair Politics EU, the proposal amended and adopted by the EP will be much more effective. Plus, the new legislation tackles a number of existent incoherencies between development, environmental and trade policies. Clear formulation and extended measures make this a much more tangible regulation for operators of timber products to comply with.

The proposal is now still in its first reading of the codecision procedure. This means that the amended proposal will now be sent to the Council, which can agree with the proposal as adopted by the EP or it can draw up a common position. If the EP and Council do not reach agreement, a third reading will follow.

All this means that the proposal of the EP is not a definite one. Still, we are optimistic: we believe that this proposal is an important step in the right direction. We encourage the Council to react soon and to avoid delays, so that this regulation will come in to force as soon as possible.

MEP Caroline Lucas has made a great effort to improve the proposal of the Commission in order to tackle the problem of trade in illegally logged timber more efficiently. The proposal, though her work, has also become more coherent with development and environmental policies. The actions of Caroline Lucas will will therefore be monitored as fair. 

In The Procedure File you will find the overview of the decision making procedure and the links to all relevant policy documents: the Commission proposal and the proposal as adopted by the EP.

Notes
[1] Debate during EP Plenary on 22 April 2009: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20090421&secondRef=ITEM-021&language=EN&ring=A6-2009-0115
[2] European Parliament legislative resolution of 22 April 2009 on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down the obligations of operators who place timber and timber products on the market (P6_TA-PROV(2009)0225)