Right royal shot across the bows

Many, however, had originally sat down to watch a BBC Panorama probe into suspected breaches of the EU Timber Regulation.

As it turned out, the BBC bosses decided that a bouncing baby prince trumped allegations of illegal EU tropical timber imports. Subsequently they bumped the programme to Thursday in favour of hours of coverage of the happy event.

The stay of execution, albeit for just 72 hours, may have resulted in some sighs of relief, as there were concerns that Panorama might follow the tendency of harder line greens and extrapolate specific allegations of illegality against individual businesses into a demolition job of the wider industry.

However, at the risk of egg on face in writing this before the programme goes out,

having only seen extracts, and it keeping more damaging, wider allegations up its sleeve, it looks safe to say that the worst fears about its content were not founded.

Preview material online showed the report focused on okoumé logs imported into France by La Rochelle-based EdWood. The timber, from Taman Industries of Congo-Brazzaville, was marked as being sourced from a legitimate logging area, whereas, it was alleged, it came from another which was subject to an export ban. Reporter Raphael Rowe asked an EdWood executive whether it had done sufficient illegality due diligence and alleged that the imports were in breach of the EUTR. He also concluded that enforcement of the Regulation was not up to scratch in France and that lax implementation in any member country undermined its effectiveness across the EU. It was, he said, a "chain of good intentions with weak links".

The programme made a connection with the UK by reporting that Robbins Timber had bought from a French customer of EdWood. But Robbins managing director Richard Bagnall, who was interviewed, was assured that no link was drawn between the minimal quantities of marine plywood involved and the alleged illegal material.

The encouragement that the UK trade can take from the programme was that if it could have put a UK company in the dock for EUTR breaches, it undoubtedly would.

The UK, is in fact, one of the most assiduous observers of the Regulation, due in no small part to the efforts of the Timber Trade Federation to educate and inform the industry and to make its Responsible Purchasing Policy (RPP), which is aligned to EUTR legal requirements, compulsory for members. Greenpeace forest campaigner Richard George also told TTJ that it regards the UK's National Measurement Office as one of the EU's "top tier" of EUTR competent authorities monitoring and enforcing the Regulation.

But what the Panorama programme also clearly was for the UK trade was a serious - and valuable - shot across the bows on the Regulation and illegal timber generally. It showed that the mainstream media, as well as environmentalists, are now on the alert for any breach and that the trade cannot lower its guard on observance. It also flagged up an awareness that the UK's best efforts could be undermined by weak EUTR enforcement elsewhere and that the trade and government must actively press for uniform implementation across the EU. We have been warned.