The NMO, the UK’s EUTR enforcment agency or competent authority, organises its schedule of activity and strategies on an annual basis and is set to launch its programme of planned activity for the next year.

"The market can expect to see an increase in the frequency of our visits over the next weeks and months," said head of enforcement Michael Kearney. "Over the last year quite a lot of our time was devoted to awareness raising, but we are now dedicating our resources more to direct enforcement."

The upturn in activity, he added, would also be the result of the NMO having "more boots on the ground".

"We remain a core team of six or seven, but can draw on up to 30 from elsewhere in the NMO," he said.

The organisation has some major projects planned, focusing on key product areas and sources of supply identified as higher risk of illegality.

Mr Kearney stressed that these would not be focused exclusively on the timber trade, but organised across a "good spread" of the product sectors covered by the EUTR. These range from pulp and unprinted papers, to most types of wooden furniture. All companies in these businesses must undertake illegality risk assessment due diligence of suppliers of any products they first place in the EU.
Currently the NMO is not pursuing any prosecutions under the EUTR, but is dealing with "some serious non-compliances".

It would not comment on whether it was looking into recent allegations made by Greenpeace that Brazilian tropical timber products were being imported into the UK with inadequate proof of legality. But it said it "carefully reviewed and assessed all substantiated concerns before deciding on the appropriate response".

As part of its wider strategy to ensure EUTR compliance, the EC has stepped up processing of Monitoring Organisation (MOs) applications by appointing Finnish consultancy Indufor to undertake initial assessment. MOs set up EUTR-aligned due diligence systems and help client companies adopt and manage them. So far, while over 30 bodies have applied for the role, including SGS, BM TRADA and the Soil Association in the UK, only four have been approved. All outstanding applications are now expected to be processed in 2014/15.

"It could be useful to have MOs to help those businesses currently struggling with the concept to get through due diligence," said Mr Kearney.