EIA at 40 – our Forests team’s pivotal role in shutting the doors to stolen timber in the EU and US
In the countdown to EIA’s 40th anniversary later this year, we are featuring previous editions of our newsletter, highlighting our historical work exposing environmental crime and abuse.
Today, we share an edition from 2010 detailing a breakthrough in our campaign to end illegal logging.
In a landmark moment for the world’s threatened rainforests, on 7 July 2010 the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to ban imports of illegally logged timber and wood products.
After working at the forefront of international efforts to curb illegal logging and timber smuggling for more than a decade, we were overjoyed to see this legislation pass.
Commenting at the time, Forests Campaign Leader Faith Doherty said: “By having this law, Europe is taking responsibility for a huge market that has driven the demand for cheap tropical timber. The actual law itself could be stronger, by extending the ban to all players who sell timber and wood products in Europe, but for the moment what we have is a prohibition that addresses those who first place timber and wood products onto the market.”
The legislation followed the success of our efforts in the US to help achieve a revision of the Lacey Act, adopted in May 2008, to ban all sales of, and trade in, illegally harvested timber.
After so many investigations and so much lobbying, the world’s two largest markets for wood products – the US and EU – had shut their doors on imports of stolen timber.
