The EU and Vietnam conclude negotiations on a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). The agreement will help improve forest governance, address illegal logging and promote trade in verified legal timber products from Vietnam to the EU, and other markets.

The Indonesian Trade Ministry has defended its stance on a revised regulation annulling the timber legality verification system (SVLK) requirement for exporting 15 downstream products of timber, saying that exporters are still obliged to show proof of environmentally certified material. Under the revised regulation, small to medium-sized exporters are exempted from an obligation to provide SVLK certification and are only required to provide an export declaration without an expiry date. Pulp and paper manufacturers are unlikely to be affected due to their large size. The value of Indonesia’s timber product exports to the EU went up by 8.9 percent from US$593 million in 2013 to $645.9 million last year, accounting for around 9 percent of the total export value of the country’s timber products, according to data from the FLEGT-VPA annual report.

A new paper by Chatham House and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has found that timber harvested illegally in Africa, Asia and Latin America continues to be sold on world markets, despite international efforts to curb the trade. Experts say that the EUTR and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) are complementary. However, there is a lack of coordination between the agencies involved in enforcing the rules of the two systems. One of the biggest loopholes identified is that both CITES- and FLEGT-licenced timber is exempt from the due diligence requirements under the EUTR, so fraudulent paperwork could escape scrutiny.

The EU has signed a VPA with the Government of Liberia which aims to improve forest governance and ensure that the wood imported into the EU has complied with the Liberian legal requirements. The UK Government is providing aid to support the process and the ultimate goal of developing FLEGT licenced timber.

The Indonesian language version of the report from Human Rights Watch called “The Dark Side of Green Growth: Human Rights Impacts of Weak Governance in Indonesia’s Forestry Sector” was released today. The report says that the new FLEGT VPA between the EU and Indonesia does not address whether harvesting of the timber has violated local community rights and it does not address corruption in the issuance of timber cutting licences. The NGO is concerned that the problems related to local community rights are likely to worsen rather than improve as the government’s “green development” plan aggressively expands plantations of pulp trees for paper and oil palm for biofuel.

New checks on Indonesian timber are being introduced by the EU to curb illegal logging. The EU is Indonesia’s biggest export market for timber, with Germany, the UK, France and Italy among the major importers.
From now on, only Indonesian timber compliant with the EU’s verification system, called Forest Law Enforcement Governance (FLEGT) will be imported into the EU. The European Commission says the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with Indonesia commits both sides to only trade in verified legal timber products.

The Malaysian Government has launched MYTLAS to verify the legality of Malaysian wood products. The country is currently negotiating a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU under the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Programme (FLEGT). It appears likely that Peninsular Malaysia and the state of Sabah will conclude a VPA with the EU separately from the state of Sarawak which will make arrangements to participate in the VPA later. Sarawak has been at the centre of allegations of primary rainforest clearance and the Chief Minister has been accused by the NGO Bruno Manser Fund of money-laundering profits from forest clearance in Switzerland. There are concerns that a partial VPA would undermine FLEGT by setting a precedent whereby countries can sell legal timber into the EU while continuing deforestation in certain regions.

Analysis of the prospects for Burma’s forests in the wake of international sanctions being lifted. Aside from some ad hoc exploitation Burma’s primary forests have remained largely intact and are home to a rich diversity of wildlife. Meanwhile Burma’s leaders appear to be taking a measured approach to environmental planning with the recent postponement of a Chinese-sponsored dam citing environmental concerns and civil society in the country is increasingly active. However, an EU FLEGT report published last year noted that the government does not collect or publish detailed data on the forest sector and concluded that the forest sector has become increasingly corrupt.

Central African Republic and Liberia become the fifth and sixth countries to sign Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with the EU. Under the EU Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), VPAs commit partner countries to establish systems and a licencing scheme to ensure only verified legal timber products (including pulp and paper) are exported from that country from 3rd March 2013 (globally; not just to EU member states). VPAs with Ghana and Cameroon are close to being signed and VPAs with four more countries are currently being negotiated.