GERMANY

Figures show that German imports of raw tropical timber are declining as a result of ethical concerns on the part of consumers and the Government.

The German Government reports an annual fall of over 20 percent to 110,850 cubic metres in 2002, and in terms of value the amount decreased by a similar amount to EUR 40.3 million in the same period.

Nearly all of the tropical raw timber imported into Germany in 2002 originated from Africa (98 percent of the total imported). Around 42 percent of the related German timber imports came from Cameroon, 16 percent from Gabon, 13 percent from Liberia and 13 percent from the Republic of the Congo. The remainder originated from Myanmar.

The German Government has proposed a new Virgin Forests Act to ensure that it stops importing timber which may be illegal from these countries, but it has not yet become law.

Germany is also an exporter of softwood from its own sustainably managed forests, which cover over 30 of the country.

DOCUMENTS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
01/10/2009	Tropical Forest Destruction for Children’s Books: An Analysis of the German Book Market More and more books bought in Germany are manufactured abroad, particularly in Asia. The authors of this ...	WWF
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01/03/2009	Buying a sustainable future? Timber procurement policies in Europe and Japan The aim of this publication is to act as a central source of information on the timber procurement policies ...	FERN
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01/09/2007	Summary of Public Procurement Policies Summary documents with details of governmental timber procurement policies in a comparitive table format. ...	Proforest
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30/04/2007	WWF Illegal Logging Government Barometer 2007 (No. IV) The Barometer assesses the efforts of European governments to implement the EU's Action Plan on ...	WWF
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01/05/2006	Demand-Side Options: Policies and measures for reducing imports of illegal timber and timber products to consumer countries Looks at the options available to governments of consumer countries to reduce their contribution to illegal ...	Chatham House (Duncan Brack and Jade Saunders)
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25/01/2006	EU FLEGT Initiative: Assessment of 'Additional Measures' to Exclude Illegal Timber from EU Markets: Germany study Analysis of German legislation of potential relevance to controlling imports of illegal timber; linked ...	German Government
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15/03/2005	German Draft Virgin Forests Act The purpose of the draft Act is to prohibit the possession and marketing of timber and timber products ...	German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
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01/08/2001	FERN Illegal timber trade statistics Estimates of illegal timber imported by EU member states from Brazil, Cameroon, Indonesia and Malays ...	FERN
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NEWS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
07/03/2013	Encumbered Lumber : Europe Seeks Hard Line on Illegal Logging Until recently, European companies could import illegally felled lumber with no fear of prosecution. ...	Spiegel Online
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10/07/2012	German Chancellor Merkel to discuss deforestation in Indonesia Jakarta - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was to discuss deforestation and the environment Tuesday in ...	Europe Online Magazine
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22/02/2012	WWF says European Union is 'failing the forests' The European Union is coming up short in stemming the flow of illegal and unsustainable timber into the ...	Hardwood Floors, US
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15/02/2012	Europe is falling behind on tackling unsustainable timber trade EU countries are not doing enough to stem the flow of illegal and unsustainable timber or regulating ...	ClickGreen
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05/09/2011	Germany keen to join hands with Malaysia to curb illegal logging Frankfurt - The German government is aggressively trying to curb illegal felling of trees in tropical ...	Bernama, Malaysia
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21/06/2011	Norway, Germany give $90 mln to slow deforestation Oslo - Norway and Germany announced aid of more than $90 million on Tuesday for World Bank programmes ...	Reuters
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20/06/2011	German Chancellor urged to freeze Taib’s Deutsche Bank assets Berlin, Germany - Angela Merkel receives NGO complaint on Deutsche Bank’s business ties with Abdul ...	World-Wire
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04/04/2011	German aid agency donates 4 million euros for Lao reforestation Vientiane - The German International Cooperation Agency donated 4 million euros (5.7 million dollars) ...	Monsters and Critics
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25/03/2011	German bank dumps palm oil company stock DWS, a fund management company run by Deutsche Bank, has dropped all Wilmar International stock from ...	Mongabay.com
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20/09/2010	Forestry thrust gets 3M The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has signed an agreement with German Technical ...	Business World Online, Philippines
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21/03/2010	German publishers asked to open a new chapter on World Forest Day A recent WWF study found many books printed for the German market contained paper sourced from rainforests ...	Deutsche Welle, Germany
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18/12/2009	European countries endorse UN-backed pact on tropical timber Eleven European countries have ratified a United Nations-backed agreement designed to promote the sustainable ...	UN News Centre
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09/09/2009	German sawmilling association criticises double certification A German sawmilling body has expressed concern at attempts to pursue double certification in several ...	TTJ Timber Industry Magazine
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10/10/2007	Environmental and consumer advocates complain about excessive paper consumption in Germany ...	Heise Online (Germany)
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30/04/2007	EU governments failing the forests Brussels, Belgium European governments are dragging their heels on a key EU initiative designed to tackle ...	WWF
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14/04/2007	Greenpeace: Germans involved in illegal logging in DR Congo Greenpeace has called for urgent action to prevent illegal logging in DR Congo. The environmental group ...	Deutsche Welle (Germany)
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28/01/2007	Federal Administration now only procuring wood from verifiably legal forest management (Press Release) Germany - As a signal for environmentally and socially sound, economically viable forest ...	German Ministry for the Environment (Germany)
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17/01/2007	Explanatory Notes regarding the procurement of wood products (Press Release) Attachment to the joint instruction of 17.01.2007 that the German Federal Administration ...	German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Germany)
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10/05/2005	Industry Briefing: German Draft Virgin Forests Act As of 15 March 2005, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear ...	TTF (UK)
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20/04/2005	Germany moves to ban illegal timber marketing Germany has become the first EU member state to propose legislation outlawing import or marketing of ...	Environment Daily
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19/04/2005	Virgin forest remedial statute wrong approach (Machine translation of German Forest Owners Press Release) DBV demands clarification for the protection ...	DBV (Germany)
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29/06/2004	Greenpeace claims to expose Danzer Group's involvement in bribery and illegal logging Switzerland/The Netherlands - An investigation published by Greenpeace International today claims to ...	Greenpeace
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29/06/2004	Greenpeace reveals bribery at Danzer Group Today Greenpeace published an investigation into Swiss/German logging company The Danzer Group, which ...	Greenpeace
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PRESENTATIONS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
17/01/2008	Public Procurement Policy in Germany: Scope and Implementation	German Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries (Ulrich Bick)
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EVENTS

DATE	TITLE
Monday 8th October 2007	Fingerprinting: methods for the identification of timber origins Currently research groups in different countries are working on genetic and chemical techniques to identify ...
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Wednesday 19th September 2007	EU-China Conference on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance The Government of the People's Republic of China, the Government of Germany and of the United Kingdom ...
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LINKS

TITLE	DESCRIPTION	REPORT
Germany: GTZ	GTZ is a German government-owned corporation for international cooperation with worldwide operations. The link takes you to its site on International Forest Policy Dialogue.	Broken link
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IHB, Fordaq Network	"The online market for German speaking wood professionals". Site includes news stories, some relevant to illegal logging. The site is in English, as well as German, French, Italian and Spanish.	Broken link
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Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE)	The MCPFE is a political initiative working towards the protection and sustainable management of forests in Europe. It involves 44 European countries, the EC, and cooperates with countries outside of Europe and international organizations that participate as observers.	Broken link
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