The New Zealand government says it has not plans to legislate against importing illegally-sourced timber within the next 18 months.
This week Australia’s Labor government announced that, if re-elected on August 21, it will make it an offence to import any illegally harvested wood.
Environmental groups and timber organisations in New Zealand, including Greenpeace and the Forest Owners Association, have called for New Zealand’s government to do the same.
But agriculture and forestry minister David Carter said the government was trialling a voluntary labelling scheme with the timber industry, which encourages companies to verify the legality of their products.
“At this stage the government’s determined they’ll try a voluntary approach. If that doesn’t work, then one of the options we could look at is whether we ban the importation of these tropical timbers in totality,” he said.
Mr Carter said the government would wait for the trial to conclude in 18 months’ time before looking at other options.
