Reports and Papers

Controlling Illegal Logging: Consumer-Country Measures

Briefing Paper
Duncan Brack, January 2010

Consumer countries contribute to the problems of illegal logging by importing timber and wood products without ensuring that they are legally sourced. Over the last few years, however, consumer countries have taken a series of measures to try to ensure that they exclude illegal timber products from their markets.
The bilateral voluntary partnership agreements negotiated between the EU and timber-producing countries, which will establish a licensing scheme for legal timber, offer one of the best ways of controlling the trade but will be slow to establish.
Broader measures to exclude illegal timber lack some of the benefits of this approach but can be implemented more quickly and with greater coverage. The extension of the Lacey Act to timber in 2008 was a significant development, providing the US with an effective means of encouraging the timber industry to exercise 'due care' and preventing imports of illegal timber. Whether the EU's 'due diligence' regulation will prove as effective remains to be seen.
Public procurement policies aimed at purchasing legal (and, usually, sustainable) timber can prove very effective in excluding illegal timber from segments of a consumer-country market.
All these developments will encourage the spread of the voluntary certification and legality verification schemes, but at the same time are likely to expose them to increasing pressures, for example from fraud.