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The 11th meeting of the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) between the Republic of the Congo and the European Union was held in Brazzaville on 20-21 November 2019. The aide-memoire of the meeting has been made available on the FLEGT VPA website.
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While still dwarfed by domestic production and exports, Indonesia’s imports of timber and timber products are rising in several product groups. Total Indonesian imports of timber and timber products increased 35% to 4.23 million tonnes between 2015 and 2018. In value terms, imports increased 16% to US$1.52 billion. Much of the growth in import quantity has been concentrated in wood (HS 44) products, with a particularly dramatic increase during 2017.
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The first IMM EU trade survey in 2017 identified several administrative issues that may have had an impact on the market for FLEGT-licensed timber in the early stages after implementation. First and foremost, there were delays in clearance of shipments for circulation on the European markets due to FLEGT-license mismatches. Some companies also had difficulties adapting to the new administrative procedures involved in importing FLEGT-licensed timber and called for a fully electronic process to reduce administrative effort. Besides these administrative issues, lack of awareness of the Indonesian FLEGT VPA and what it means on the ground was frequently mentioned as undermining market development.
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The question of where FLEGT stands in relation to voluntary third-party certification is frequently raised in discussions during IMM Trade Consultations and in interviews conducted as a part of IMM surveys. Is the FLEGT VPA process “a step backwards” because it focuses on demonstrating compliance to national forest laws rather than to international “sustainable forestry” principles that are the basis for forest certification systems? Or is the FLEGT process “better” than voluntary certification, because it is mandatory, better placed to achieve a broad national stakeholder consensus on forest management standards integrated with national regulatory and fiscal frameworks, and helps to ensure equitable access for all forest operators?
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The FSC Controlled Wood System was first introduced in 2004 alongside introduction of the FSC Mix label which allows, under controlled conditions, the mixing of FSC certified material with uncertified material in FSC labelled products. The non-certified portion must comply with the FSC Controlled Wood standards which enable manufacturers and traders to avoid timber and timber products from unacceptable sources. The Controlled Wood requirements are an integral part of FSC chain of custody (CoC) certification which, at the end of 2018, applied to 40,000 operators worldwide, including nearly 20,000 in the EU.
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Assessing the current availability of third party verified products in the EU market is challenging since no system-wide data is regularly or systematically collected on the actual volume or value of trade in these products. The FSC and PEFC certification frameworks that might be expected to provide such data only publish information on the area of certified forest and the numbers of chain of custody certificates issued.
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The IMM 2018 trade survey analysed whether there were any perceived direct impacts from the introduction of FLEGT-licensing and the EUTR on imports of timber certified by private certification and legality verification schemes. Figure 1 shows that, according to respondents, private schemes, especially FSC, have profited to some degree from the introduction of EUTR. Several respondents remarked that, since EUTR was introduced, they have tended to prefer certified timber from countries where the risk of illegal harvest is considered non-negligible and certification is used as the principle mechanism to mitigate this risk.
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Overall progress of third-party certification under the FSC and PEFC frameworks in VPA partner countries was slow before efforts to develop FLEGT licensing systems began and, in most countries, progress has remained slow during the period of TLAS implementation. Total FSC and PEFC certified area in all VPA Partner countries was 17.5 million hectares in 2018, up from 11.62 million hectares in 2012 and less than 3 million hectares in 2007. While the rate of increase is impressive, in 2018 less than 4% of total forest area in VPA partner countries was certified and around 80% of the certified area was in just two of the 15 countries, Indonesia (38%) and Malaysia (42%).
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IMM’s latest Annual Report, “FLEGT VPA Partners in EU Timber Trade 2018”, shows that the combined share of the VPA partner countries in global tropical wood products trade (all products in HS 44 and wood furniture products in HS 94) was 78.8% in 2018, slightly down from 78.9% in 2017 and 79.4% in 2016. This trend is set in the context of an 8% rise in global tropical wood products trade in 2018, to US$39.8 billion.
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Ghana is at final joint assessment stage of its FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement and keen to promote its achievement, what it means on the ground and to counter ‘myths’ about the value of FLEGT. That was the message from Chris Beeko (pictured left) of the Ghana Forestry Commission, opening Workshop 3 of the Trade Consultation, which focused on FLEGT implementation progress in Africa and the experience of EU producers operating on the continent.
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Like all manufacturing and construction materials and products, timber has to meet customer and specifier criteria on price, quality, performance and availability. But arguably more than most competing materials, it also has increasingly to satisfy procurement policy requirements on proof of legality and sustainability.
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The opening workshop of the Barcelona consultation gave delegates the chance to discuss the state and outlook for FLEGT licensed timber; the challenges and opportunities, market constraints and how to tackle them. Titled “Trends in demand for VPA partner timber – Background, Reasons and Solutions”, the context for discussion was set by IMM Trade Analyst Rupert Oliver. He provided a statistical snapshot of the international market for timber from VPA partner and competing countries, with a particular focus on exports to the EU.