NGOs urge EU to strengthen action against illegal logging

This week, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) together with several European NGOs issued a new joint briefing calling on the European Commission to take stronger action against illegal logging through the existing EU Forests Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan and to address EU goals to tackle deforestation with a new Action Plan.

View of an illegal logging camp on Salawati Island, one of the Raja Ampat Islands, West Papua, Indonesia (c) EIA/Telapak

.The NGOs – Client Earth, Conservation International, EIA, FERN, Forest Peoples Programme, Global Witness, Greenpeace, Transparency International and WWF – recommend the following:

• that the EU demonstrates strong political commitment to the effective implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) and strengthens their impact, including through addressing governance, integrity and sustainability challenges;

• that the EU ensures the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) is strictly and effectively enforced, its product scope extended to all wood-based products and green timber procurement policies are increasingly adopted;

• that the development of rules governing the international timber trade and improve overall policy coherence are strengthened;

• that specific measures to address conflict timber are adopted to stem the flow of conversion timber and to ensure investment is shifted away from forest-damaging activities as part of the implementation of the FLEGT Action Plan;

• that additional measures are adopted, as part of a new EU Action Plan on deforestation and forest degradation, to support the protection and restoration of forest ecosystems around the world and to eliminate deforestation from the EU’s supply chains.