72 | Feature: FLEGT


SUMMARY


■ The EU adopted the FLEGT Action Plan in 2003


■ A Fitness Check was conducted on FLEGT and the EUTR


■ It concluded that both had failed to achieve their key aims


DON’T DROP FLEGT, PLEADS NGO


NGOs and the TTF have spoken out for FLEGT following suggestions FLEGT licensing and VPAs may be dropped. Mike Jeffree reports


Above: Audit under SVLK, Indonesia’s FLEGT timber legality assurance system


Environmental NGO Fern has urged the EU not to abandon Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licensing following the release of critical initial findings from the European Commission’s (EC) recent Fitness Check of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) and FLEGT. These state that both have failed to achieve key aims and their criticism was further highlighted in a FERN webinar presentation by Hugo Maria-Schally of the EC DG Environment.


TTJ | July/August 2021 | www.ttjonline.com


In a later webinar, hosted by the FLEGT Independent Market Monitor (IMM) (https:// bit.ly/3w0Z5m1), TTF managing director David Hopkins said FLEGT was essentially about improving forest and timber sector governance, which was fundamental to any effort to maintain forests and their climate regulating capacity. But, he said, a weakness of the EU – and UK supported – timber legality assurance initiative was that it didn’t seem to have anybody specifically focused


on “pushing it forward and trying to make it work” and he suggested its management was “possibly in the wrong place”.


The EC Fitness Check did come up with some positive findings, including that FLEGT, had broadened stakeholder engagement in supplier country forest sector policy making and improved governance. The EUTR, meanwhile, had focused the timber trade on keeping supply chains “clean”. However, preliminary conclusions were


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