Transforming the supply chain

Summary
• Illegal logging jeopardises the future of the timber trade.
• A global response is needed to tackle the problem.
• New EU legislation to combat the illegal timber trade is pending.
• The industry’s marketing should focus on legal and credibly certified timber.

As market demand for food, raw materials and fuel increases, so will the impact on our planet’s natural resources. Unfortunately, our demands are already exceeding the planet’s capacity to sustain us and this is significantly impacting the world’s forests. With each passing minute, the equivalent of 36 football fields of forest is stripped to meet growing demand for wood and agricultural products.

And this insatiable appetite is fuelling irresponsible and often illegal logging. Thriving in regions of the world where poor governance, high profits and a pervasive philosophy of “no questions asked” prevails, illegal logging and its associated trade pose some of the most severe and fundamental threats to forests. It also jeopardizes the raw material that your business depends on; causes devastating impacts on the world’s climate; and threatens the economic viability of responsible producers by introducing cheap, sometimes substandard, materials into the global marketplace.

In the face of these challenges, how can you be certain you aren’t unwittingly contributing to the degradation of the world’s forests? The answer lies in a global response, from businesses and governments alike, demanding environmentally and socially responsible products. If forest products are your business, you have a stark choice – to be a part of the problem or part of the solution.

Rising consumer and legislative demands for legal wood and well-managed forests have resulted in a range of solutions to the problem of preventing illegal timber from entering supply chains in key markets, such as Europe and the US, and increasingly further afield.

Europe's FLEGT

The European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative is one response to building demand for legally verified timber. Pending legislation also calls for any operator placing timber or timber products on the EU market for the first time to operate a “due diligence” system to minimise the risk of the material originating from an illegal source. Correspondingly, the development of bi-lateral trade agreements between the EU and supplier countries through Voluntary Partnership Agreements is shifting global markets toward legal timber with an associated licensing scheme in preparation.

In the same way, recent amendments to the Lacey Act in the US, which prohibits illegal trade in animal and plants, including timber, require importers to prove the origin, species and legality of any forest product entering the country. This burden of proof has resulted in increased pressure exerted throughout global supply chains, requiring suppliers to trace and verify the source and legality of their timber. While the mechanisms of the Lacey Act and the EU regulation vary, the end result will be the same. Therefore, you have to know the law and be confident you have complied.

Encouraging and rewarding transparency and responsibility in the world’s supply chains, legal frameworks, like the Lacey Act and FLEGT, are having a profound impact on the timber sector as companies seek to demonstrate their ability to exercise due care in sourcing legal wood. But achieving legality is only a stepping stone in safeguarding the world’s forests.

Working together

If the negative impacts of illegal logging and associated trade are to be truly eliminated it is surely the responsibility of all players to work together. Governments across the world are waking up to the issue. NGOs such as WWF, and others, are increasingly developing practical approaches and there are numerous service providers who can do the checking. But this all relies on the industry itself to act. Legality is not enough though, as in most parts of the world legal compliance is a long way from sustainability. By using the stepping stone of legal forest operations and trade to later achieve sound forest management and responsible wood sourcing, it is possible to supply the world’s need for timber while also conserving the biodiversity of the world’s last, great forest areas, such as Borneo, the Congo Basin and the Amazon. Simply, legality is good but it is not enough.

If we are to capitalise on the inherent characteristics of wood we need to be able to compete with other building materials. Until the hurdle of legality is crossed, it is hard to make more headway against what are obviously less sustainable materials. By sending consistent market signals for legal and credibly certified timber, you can play an integral role in positively transforming the nature of the global forest products supply chain and, consequently, its impact on forest resources around the world.