In contrast to intra-EU trade, level of exposure to some form of certification or legality verification of all EU timber products imports from outside the EU was only around 25% in 2014. While low, this figure is heading in the right direction, rising from 19% in 2007, as ITTO reported.
The assessment also indicates that if all timber from the 17 countries that are now engaged in FLEGT VPAs had been licensed in 2014, the level of exposure to legally verified timber in EU external trade would have been 8% higher, at 33%.
The increase due to VPA countries excludes areas already certified or legally verified in these countries (notably by SVLK in Indonesia, PEFC/MTCS in Malaysia and FSC in Central Africa) which are already included in the 25% figure.
Obviously that leaves a large proportion of imports which are unlikely to be from third party certified or legally verified sources. The chart on the left shows that China dominates amongst EU-supplying countries with low exposure to verified timber. China's level of exposure to certification is set to increase significantly.
The 2014 data does not include figures for the China Forest Certification System (CFCS) which was endorsed by PEFC in February 2014 but had yet to register any PEFC-certified forest at the end of that year.
By the end of 2015, 5.6 million hectares were registered as PEFC certified in China and more recent reports from the China State Forestry Administration indicate that around 10 million hectares of forest are now certified – although most of that area is natural protection forest and China’s large area of production plantation forest is still largely uncertified.
North America is identified as another region with “low exposure” to legality verification and certification. Most commercial forest land in Canada is certified. In contrast, the U.S. has a large area of private non-industrial forest land which is not certified. The US government also has a long-standing policy commitment not to pursue certification of federal forest lands.
Latin America is assessed to have relatively low level of exposure to certification and verification. However this figure is severely distorted by reliance on forest area to calculate the index.
The Amazonian rain forest is, of course, huge and only a tiny proportion is certified. But this area only contributes a relatively small volume of timber to international trade.
Most of wood product imported into the EU from Brazil now constitutes softwood or eucalyptus from plantations outside the tropical zone, many of which are certified.
Therefore the index probably underestimates the real level of exposure of Latin American wood products in trade.
While the VPA process captures only a relatively small proportion of total EU imports of timber and timber products, it is very significant amongst tropical supplying countries in South East Asia and Africa.
If all timber products imported by the EU from VPA countries were FLEGT licensed, the level of exposure to verified timber from Southeast Asia would rise from 25% to 95% and from Africa from 11% to 60%.
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