EU en Indonesië ondernemen actie tegen illegale houtkap (en)

COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Brussels, 30 September 2013 (OR. en) PRESSE 373

The EU and Indonesia undertake to combat illegal logging

The EU and Indonesia signed today a voluntary partnership agreement on forest law enforcement, governance and trade in timber products to the EU (FLEGT) to fight illegal logging (/13 REV1).

Illegal Logging has a devastating impact on some of the world's most valuable forests. It can have not only serious environmental, but also economic and social consequences. Europe's response to the problem is reflected in the FLEGT action plan of the EU. The FLEGT action plan provides a number of measures to exclude illegal timber from markets, to improve the supply of legal timber and to increase the demand for responsible wood products

A central element of the EU's strategy to combat illegal logging are trade accords with timber exporting countries, known as voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs), to ensure legal timber trade and support good forest governance in the partner countries. A country that has a VPA and an operational licensing system can issue FLEGT licences for legally produced timber and timber products

As a second element, the EU created legislation to ban illegally-produced wood products from the EU market, known as the EU Timber Regulation. Regulation ¹ came into force on 3 March 2013 and prohibits operators in Europe from placing illegally harvested timber and products derived from illegal timber on the EU market

All timber and timber products with a FLEGT licence automatically comply with the EU Timber Regulation

OJL295, 12.11.2010, p.23

The EU has already signed FLEGT partnership agreements with Ghana, Congo, Cameroon, Liberia and the Central African Republic

Back in October 2003¹ Council adopted conclusions on an EU action plan for FLEGT presented by the Commission which called for measures to address illegal logging through the development of voluntary partnership agreements with timber producing countries

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  These conclusions provided key elements for the EU to initiate a political dialogue with key target countries to instigate forest sector governance reforms, more specifically to:

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  strengthen land tenure and access rights especially for marginalised and rural communities ;

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  strengthen effective participation of all stakeholders, notably of non-state actors in policy-making and implementation;

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  increase transparency in association with forest exploitation operations, including through the introduction of independent monitoring;

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  reduce corruption in association with the award of forest exploitations concessions, and the harvesting and trade in timber;

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  engage the private sector of the timber producing countries in the efforts to combat illegal logging;

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  address other issues related to illegal logging as identified, such as the financing of violent conflict

For the signature of the FLEGT partnership agreement with Indonesia, the EU was represented by Mr Valentinas Mazuronis, Minister of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania, President-in-Office of the Council of the EU, and Commissioner Janez Potocnik member of the European Commission with responsibility for Environment. Mr Zulkifli Hasan, Minister for Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia signed the agreement for his country

¹ OJC268, 7.11.2003, p. 1