Brussels, 22/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - In a communication to the Council and Parliament, the European Commission unveiled an Action Plan to combat the growing problem of illegal logging and the related trade in illegally harvested timber in the Community and outside. Prepared on the initiative of Commissioners Poul Nielson (cooperation and development) and Margot Wallström (Environment), the communication is entitled Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade. The Commission is proposing the following:
In the context of its cooperation and development policy, the Union will held partners countries to devise inspections systems to ensure that the wood comes from legal harvests, promote transparency of information, enhance government capacity and that of civil society to encourage partners countries to stimulate reform of wood resources management policies.
In order to fight against Illegal logging and the international trade the Union will develop dialogue with producer and consumer countries in view of immediately implementing a voluntary licensing scheme, where partner countries issue a permit attesting to the legality of timber exported to the EU. Implementation of this system would be guaranteed by a European regulation that he Commission is prepared to complete with other measures if there is no multilateral success (by EU inspections for example on imports to Community).
A public procurement policy where contracting authorities will be guided on how to deal with legality when specifying timber in procurement procedures.
Encourage private sector initiatives for good practice in the forest sector, including the use of voluntary codes of conduct to source only legal timber.
Address the problems posed by use of revenues from illegally harvested timber to fund and prolong armed conflicts.
With this action plan, the "Commission undertakes to combat all illegal exploitation of forests by contributing to effective application of international law and to better management of woodland resources in producer countries, as well as seeking to put an end to the trade in wood and wood products obtained illegally", Poul Nielson states. He calls upon wood consuming countries to recognise the vital role they have to play in the fight against this illegal international trade.
Recalling that this commitment was signed up to in Johannesburg, during the world summit on sustainable development, Margot Wallström added: "this action plan is additional proof of our determination to go from words to deeds".
The success of the plan will depend on coordinated EU action, the Commission believes. It also proposes to develop, in cooperation with the Member States, a joint work programme for implementing the activities that it recommends.