Summary
Illegal logging threatens our global forestry, species of plants and animals as well as indigenous people’s communities. It prevents billions of tonnes of carbon emissions from being cleanly absorbed and thus allows it to pollute our atmosphere.
Introduction
Illegal logging is important as, beyond the environmental risks, it also undermines the legal timber trade, creates police corruption and incites other illegal businesses such as money laundering and the illegal trafficking of goods. It is estimated that it can contribute as much as 6.5 billion USD to the black market every ten years (Lawson 2010) and threatens the livelihoods of millions of legitimate timber workers and businesses. The root cause of the problem is often believed to involve groups in developing countries exploiting workers, police officials and dock workers in order to get around paying for permits or being limited by environmental restrictions. Palmer (2000) also states that “‘wild’ logging may have expanded dramatically in many parts of Indonesia since the Asian financial crisis began in 1997”. In addition to this, an independent report on the effectiveness of the EU FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) action plan also states that when illegal logging was at its peak around 2004 (Lawson 2010), that the biggest producer countries were economically developing (EU 2016). This draws a direct link between developing countries and rates of illegal logging as supplementary income. This briefing document will observe cases of both international and national legislation to tackle illegal logging, as well as make independent recommendations.
Figure 1 – Causes of Illegal logging (Palmer 2000)
Critique of existing policies
One of current failing approaches by the EU is through the FLEGT action plan, which has two main aims. The first aim, proposed in 2005, was to increase control on timber entering the EU from countries that agreed to enter a Voluntary Partnership agreement with the EU (EU 2003). Voluntary Partnership Agreements were set up within FLEGT to give extra support to countries willing to work with the EU to reduce illegal logging in their country or help to reduce their own intake of illegal timber. However, Brack (2005) states that “The obvious weakness of the proposed licensing system is that some producer countries may choose not to enter into partnership agreements, in which case no controls will be applied to their exports to the EU”. He also comments that this leaves both the scheme and the EU vulnerable to imports of illegal timber or illegal timber goods from “non-partner countries” and that there is no real guarantee of success as it is impossible to tell how many countries will agree to be part of the program, least of all the largest consumer or producer countries (Brack 2005).
The second main aim of FLEGT was to prohibit illegal timber and illegal timber products from entering the internal EU market (EU 2003). However, on top of these legislative actions, the EU has also tried to influence the biggest consumer countries of illegal timber, such as China, Russia and the US into tightening their boarder security to prevent illegal timber or illegal timber goods from being imported. These discussions have had “little degree of success or cooperation” (EU 2016). In fact, the amount of illegal timber going into China has risen significantly over the 10 year period the action plan was implemented. The report also indicates that there was a more generalised rise in illegal timber being fed into consumer countries over this period. There has been a shift in the biggest ‘producer countries’ from Russia and Indonesia in 2003 to Russia and China at the time that the report’s data was collected in 2014 (EU 2016)
Figure 2 – chart displaying China’s import of tropical timber from 2000-2014 (EU 2016)
Another ineffective policy currently being enacted by the FLEGT program is pressurizing the banks within the financial sector of the EU into agreeing to investigate their account holders for money laundering, in connection with illegal logging (EU 2016). However Brack (2005) claims that this poses “severe practical difficulties” as the institutions set up to investigate such financial illegalities often look for unusual transaction patterns as means of identification, but in the case of money flow from illegal logging, the transactions would look perfectly regular and thus would be very challenging to identify for the authorities. Thus the EU’s policy of pressurizing member states’ banks is likely to prove completely redundant.
A more effective, non-legislative step taken by the EU has been to compel public and private sector companies to introduce ‘procurement policies’ to reduce the amount of illegal timber goods being brought into the country. They have also pressured timber companies to agree to completely scrap the use of illegal timber inside of the EU and have managed to persuade the banks of the financial sector to review whether or not any of their clients are involved with illegal logging. In many ways this can be seen as successful as the amount of illegal timber or timber goods coming into the EU has fallen dramatically (EU 2016).
Figure 3 – chart displaying the EU’s import of tropical timber from 1999-2014 (EU 2016)
Another functioning approach is that of the Bolivian Forestry Regulatory Framework. One of the laws, passed in 1996, that the Bolivian Forest Regulatory Framework is based on, describes the principles by which the forest can be managed, taxed and assessed (Tacconi 2007). It also clearly established the institutions that are responsible for forest law enforcement, as well as their financing, and defines the local government’s role in preventing illegal logging. The forest regulatory framework’s main aims were to; promote sustainable forest management, introduce a less corruptible system for forest fees, reduce illegality, stimulate community forest management, increase land security for a variety of stakeholders, legalize traditional and legitimate forest use by indigenous people and small forest users (Tacconi 2007). By looking at illegal logging at a grassroots level the framework is successful in instilling a community ethic against illegal logging.
Actions and Recommendations
In regards to future action to further reduce illegal logging I believe that the EU’s continued pressure on public and private companies importing timber is successful because it controls another avenue from which illegal timber or subsequent products can enter the internal markets. It also makes an example of those companies found to be using illegally sourced timber and hopefully, deters other timber companies from being tempted into doing so.
Another area of policy I believe could be successful, if it was to be revised, is the collection of schemes which include large overarching government institutions. To be effective these schemes would need to put focus on closing gaps in policy enforcement, devolved power or relying on a high level of “co-ordination among various tiers of government” (Palmer 2000) as this is otherwise unlikely to be successful. However, I believe in order for the VPA system to be successful it must be taken over by a greater authority such as an independent organization more capable of pressuring big consumer countries, such as China or Russia, into tightening boarder control in a less pastoral approach than the one currently being executed by the EU.
What I believe would be more successful, are policies that place more emphasis on local community action, rather than high tier government institution diplomacy. These policies should be able to incite local peoples or communities to care about illegal logging in their environment. Included in this framework should be the legitimization of “forest use by indigenous people” (Tacconi 2007). By acknowledging the indigenous land rights of local peoples the government can create an open channel of communication which may encourage the local communities to report illegal activity to the authorities. Tacconi (2007) states that “Rural communities play an increasingly significant role in reporting forestry violations to governing officials, or confronting forestry violators themselves and regulating forest use”.
Furthermore, conservation schemes such as those of the World Bank of the US that “tend not to be linked to efforts towards good governance and the elimination of corruption” (Palmer 2000), are unlikely to have the desired impact. These schemes should be reformed to include a push on fighting imbedded corruption on a local level and draw local people’s attention to corruption as a key issue instead of distracting from it by setting purely environmental or conservational goals.
Additionally, conflict between “narrowly defined environmental programs and other sectoral lending and grant making…” should be more tightly unified by local governments whose jurisdiction these programs fall within. More unity amongst such programs could ensure that poor planning does not contribute towards further unintentional environment damage such as during the process of road building (Palmer 2000).
Lastly, as suggested by Pearce (2003), more focus from both policy and funding should be channeled into meeting timber demands from specifically designed plantations. This would leave remaining natural forests for “non-timber purposes”. Pearce suggests that such plantations could be rapidly planted up in areas of degradation that already exist in the forest environments due to excessive or illegal logging. He states that this would “protect the remaining natural forest whilst meeting demand for timber from plantations” (Pearce 2003).