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EU gets tough on timber
Environmental NGOs celebrate as ban on import and sale of illegal timber in sight.
A law prohibiting the import and sale of illegally sourced timber within the European Union has been drafted and is now waiting for the European Parliament and Council’s seal of approval, announced Greenpeace yesterday. If the law passes it will mark the end of profits being gained from illegal timber trafficking and a victory for environmental NGOs, some of which have been campaigning for laws safeguarding the world’s forests for decades.
So far, civil society’s reaction to the proposed ban has been positive although campaigners warn that there will be ‘teething problems’. Greenpeace’s EU forest policy director, Sebastien Risso, points out that: “this law could have been stronger on a number of points, especially the regime of sanctions and penalties”. The fear being that unless a minimum penality applicable to all EU member states is determined, certain counties may establish weaker sanctions than others which would open the doors to companies wishing to carry out illegal business. Other points criticized by Greenpeace include the regulation being applied as much as two years after coming into force and printed materials being exempt from the law’s scope for the next five years.
On the up side, both Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a UK based NGO that has been leading the battle to iraticate illegality in the timber buisiness for more than ten years, agree: the EU has at last sent out a clear signal saying it will no longer back timber crime. “Whereas before it was legal to place illegal timber on the market, after this law comes into effect it will be illegal” said EIA senior forest campaigns manager Jago Wadley yesterday; “so that should send a very clear message to supplier countries and importers to put in place mechanisms that ensure that the timber is legal. Obviously there will be teething problems but we are more optimistic than concerned about the teething problems at the moment”.
In a similar vein, Greenpeace’s Sebastien Risso said: “Until now companies were just buying the cheapest wood on the market, now they will have to find out where the wood has come from and collect information about the product and about the supplier, as well as assess the risk of trading with these companies because if they are found to be dealing in illegal wood they will be charged and prosecuted”.
Until early July the Parliament will not pronounce its verdict on the ban. Should we expect a surge in illegal logging as companies try to get in on the action while they can? “There is always this possiblility” says Risso. But, he reassures, both civil society and law enforcement agencies will be keeping a close eye on market trends, thanks, at least in part, to all the attention global climate talks are putting on the world’s tropical forests. If both the EU and its member states decide to implement the plan, Europe’s timber barons will soon have more than just their reputations at stake.
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