Indonesia signs FLEGT VPA
30 September 2013Indonesia today signed its Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) under the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan (FLEGT), with the ultimate aim of supplying FLEGT-licensed timber that will automatically satisfy the legality requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR).
However, NGOs said the country had "work to do" before it can achieve the latter.
The VPA was signed in Brussels this morning by Indonesian forestry minister Zulkifli Hasan and EU environment commissioner Janez Potocnik. It marked the culmination to date of the country's work to establish timber and forestry legality guarantees that satisfy the terms of the FLEGT. This has included creating a legality assurance system (LAS) and associated licensing, auditing and monitoring mechanisms.
Before it can deliver FLEGT-licensed timber that will be automatically considered legal under the EUTR, Indonesia's VPA has to be ratified into both its own and EU law. Both also have to be satisfied the LAS is effective. But, while not setting any deadlines, the country says it hopes to issue its first FLEGT licenses next year.
Although they welcomed the VPA signing, however, NGOs Greenpeace and the Environment Investigation agency said it was only a stepping stone. They said the Indonesian government still had to prove the credibility of its LAS and demonstrate its resolve to tackle industry corruption and clamp down on such areas as forest conversion for "industrial timber plantations".
