Brussels, 04/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU and Indonesia signed an agreement in Jakarta on Wednesday 4 May which aims to bring an end to the trade in illegally felled timber, which is driving the deforestation of the world's third most heavily forested area. The voluntary partnership agreement means that all supplies of timber from Indonesia to the EU will, after March 2013, have to be certified as being legally sourced. “Indonesia is by far the largest timber exporter to enter into such an agreement” with the EU, said EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht in Indonesia. Indonesian Forestry Minister Hasan Zulkifli hailed the agreement, which addresses both the supply and the demand sides, given that, he said, deforestation resulting from illegal logging is stimulated by high demand in developed and developing countries for timber and timber products.
Hitherto, 50% of Indonesia's wood exports and 20% of the wood imported into the EU from Indonesia was illegal timber. Since the start of the 1960s, when 82% of the country was covered in forests, the total forested area has shrunk to 49%, with 28 million hectares of forest, essentially on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, being lost between 1990 and 2005. Every year, the EU imports $1.2 billion worth of timber and paper from Indonesia, some 15% of the country's exports in that sector.
The European Commission has already signed similar agreements on the illegal timber trade with Cameroon and Ghana, and is currently in negotiation with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Central African Republic and Gabon. (E.H./transl.rt)