Chatham House, the UK-based think tank, hosted the annual “Illegal logging Update” meeting in London in June, a two-day event with participants from a range of producer and consumer countries in both tropical and temperate regions – mainly government, NGOs, academics, consultants, trade association and corporate representatives.
The meeting featured a panel discussion on “next steps for FLEGT” which considered the implications of the recently published independent evaluation of the EU FLEGT Action Plan.
The panel comprised Alhassan Attah (FLEGT facilitator, Guyana), Rob Busink (Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Netherlands), Julia Falconer (DFID, UK), Harrison Karnwea (Forestry Development Authority, Liberia), Philippe Mayaux (European Commission) and Putera Parthama (Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia).
The Panel discussion highlighted and reinforced key findings of the FLEGT evaluation. There was agreement that the EU FLEGT initiative remains relevant and is playing a positive role to improve forest governance in targeted countries.
There was praise for the role it is playing to promote transparency and multi-stakeholder engagement in the forest sector. The success of these aspects of FLEGT is indicated by their being replicated in other sectors in some VPA countries such as Liberia.
The discussion also confirmed other key findings of the evaluation – that FLEGT activity needs to be better targeted and monitored, to adapt to significant changes in the political and economic environment – such as the rising importance of domestic markets in the tropics and other emerging markets, to improve engagement with and relevance to the private sector, and to focus on better communication and extending the network of those involved.
The panel was questioned directly on the continuing relevance of the FLEGT plan now that the EU plays a less significant role in the global wood trade. The panel broadly agreed that the EU market remains significant, even if timber volumes have declined the EU still takes a large share from many tropical countries, particularly in Africa.
The EU is more likely to import higher value products – such as furniture – than other destinations. The panel also emphasised that even as the EU’s direct role in tropical trade is diminishing, the EU can set a positive example for sustainable consumption and make a significant contribution to policy innovation. It was emphasised that FLEGT is more than just a trade initiative, bringing together actors which benefit many in different ways.
The panel was also asked whether lack of FLEGT licenses, 13 years on from the launch of the plan, is a problem. The panel acknowledged that the initial plan may have been too ambitious and that there was a failure to anticipate the time required to embed the changes in systems and capacity across entire countries and sectors in order to develop FLEGT.
However, it was also noted that significant experience has been gained in dealing with this complexity and licensing is close to being achieved in some VPA countries. Concerted efforts are now required to improve market incentives for licensing and to engage more widely with the private sector.
