The UK’s Forest Law Enforcement and Governance Programme
Development of tools and systems to tackle illegal logging and associated trade
A wide range of tools and systems are being used to control and monitor extraction, transport and trade in natural resources; many have direct applicability to controlling illegal logging and associated trade and some are already employed in checking logging activities and tracking timber products. These range from hi-tech remote sensing applications to capturing information on the ground and publicising it to increase transparency. In order to prescribe the most appropriate combination of solutions for each situation there is a need to understand the potentials and limitations of each set of options and also to learn from past successes and failures. The UK programme supports the following activities:
Development, evaluation and use of monitoring, auditing and chain of custody solutions Adoption of independent monitoring programmes
Development, evaluation and use of monitoring, auditing and chain of custody solutions
· A report “Technologies for Wood Tracking - Verifying and Monitoring the Chain of Custody and Legal Compliance in the Timber Industry”, resulting from a World Bank/WWF Alliance workshop in Phnom Penh was published in December 2002
· A workshop facilitated by Global Forest Watch/World Resources Institute to develop recommendations for monitoring and information needs for African countries was held in Douala, Cameroon in March 2003 in preparation for the AFLEG Ministerial Meeting held in October 2003.
· Under the UK’s MoU with Indonesia, support is being provided for The Nature Conservancy and WWF to pilot test field audits of legal forest operations and systems to track timber from those concessions through processing to export.
· A review of the impacts and effectiveness of various approaches to independent forest monitoring in several countries is being undertaken by ODI. A summary of the report is available on ODI’s website as well as a case study on Multi-sectoral Forest Protection Committees in the Philippines. This work has now been extended with establishment of the VERIFOR Programme under a grant from the European Commission. This will examine systems to ensure that timber and forest products are legally harvested and to provide advice on their implementation (More…).
· Global Witness has prepared a Guide to Independent Forest Monitoring. This, together with a leaflet explaining independent forest monitoring, is available on Global Witness’s website and in hard copy.
· Global Witness has prepared further independent forest monitoring projects for Ghana and Honduras. Pilot work with the Honduras project led to establishment of a monitoring function on Honduras under its Human Rights Commission, and exposure by EIA of widespread illegal logging in Honduras and export of timber to the US.
· WWF International is implementing pilot Producer Group Projects in Ghana and Brazil under its Global Forest and Trade Network programme. These seek to link producers who are committed to sustainable forest management in those countries with buyers who need sustainable timber, and assist producers work towards forest certification.
· The consultancy, Proforest, is preparing and field testing criteria that could be used to test the adequacy of legality verification and chain of custody systems proposed for FLEGT partnership agreements.
· RIIA is undertaking an evaluation of existing private sector supply chain mechanisms to supply legal forest products to EU markets. The final report will be published in March 2006.
Adoption of independent monitoring programmes
· Under the Indonesia-UK MoU on Illegal Logging, training will be provided for a coalition of civil society groups in West Kalimantan (KAIL) to improve their monitoring and evidence collection skills.
· Under DFID’s Multi-stakeholder Forestry Project in Indonesia, EIA and Telapak have trained local NGOs to carry out monitoring of forest activities.	�Top ƒOverview
Last updated 16 May 2006