The parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) strongly criticises both the UK timber trade and the government in its report on sustainable timber released yesterday.

Ultimately, it says, legislation is needed in the next three to five years to make possession and marketing of “illegal timber” in the UK an offence.

The EAC says that tackling illegal and unsustainable logging is one of the most urgent environmental tasks facing the international community. “For natural and ancient forests to survive and function in providing livelihoods and protecting the planet’s climate and species, the goal must not be just a legal timber trade but also a sustainable timber trade,” the report states.

The Committee concluded that “illegal timber is a fact of life in the UK” making it “virtually impossible” for companies to guarantee they have eliminated it from their supply”.

It also criticises the Timber Trade Federation for allowing members to use its Code of Conduct “without thorough and transparent enforcement”. This, it claims, risks “misleading customers as to the legality and sustainability of the industry [the TTF] represents”.

The EAC says while some “progressive companies” struggle to ensure legal supplies, others are “less committed”. The latter can only be persuaded to improve their performance by the “very real threat of prosecution”.

The report says that the introduction of the TTF’s Responsible Purchasing Policy is “encouraging”, but that the “low take-up is definitely not”.

The government’s timber procurement policy also comes in for criticism for failing sufficiently to take account of the need to “protect the rights, health and livelihoods of people who live in or are dependent on forests”. Until it does, the government’s use of the term “sustainable timber” in its procurement policy is a “misnomer”.

The government’s Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) does not escape comment either thanks to its sanction of the PEFC certification scheme as proof of timber sustainability. Until the PEFC sets “minimum standards” for the national certification schemes that belong to it, says the EAC, CPET’s approval should be withdrawn.

The report concludes that all central and local government should be required to buy only sustainable timber within five years.