EU-Ghana To Stem Illegal Timber Trade

Beginning from June this year, Ghana and the European Union (EU) will formalise a voluntary partnership agreement  (VPA)  to stem illegal logging, promote good governance in the country's forest  management and ensure legal timber export from Ghana to the EU.
     

A document containing three separate briefs and a public awareness paper  on the VPA made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said it was  estimated that about 70 per cent of the 3.3 billion metres of timber  harvested annually
in Ghana was illegal.
     

It said the EU received the majority of Ghana's timber exports and was therefore concerned about the high rate of illegal timber from the country. The EU therefore, initiated the VPA negotiations as part of its Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Action Plan (FLEGTAP) launched in 2003
to nib illegal timber trade in the bud.
     

The Government of Ghana-EU VPA is expected to be initialled in June  this year ahead of its signing and ratification later in the year. The public awareness paper, written by Ms Jennifer Karmona of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), communications consultants for the VPA negotiations in Ghana, said negotiations towards the
VPA which began in December 2005 were near completion.  According to the paper, wide consultations with key stakeholders had been held under the auspices of IUCN and the local multi-stakeholder VPA Steering Committee, comprising representatives from government agencies, the timber industry and civil society.
     

Ms Karmona told the GNA that the various stakeholders would present  their reports on specific aspects of the negotiations at a final stakeholders meeting slated for May 6, 2008. She said a ministerial briefing session to discuss the five key elements in the VPA - definition of legal timber, legality insurance, timber industry  restructuring, domestic timber market and VPA impact studies - would  then follow as the last lap of negotiations, adding that, studies on all the elements had been completed except the impact assessment studies.
   

 'The ministerial briefing session is expected to lead to the adoption of an official country position on the VPA, which will then be submitted to Cabinet for approval before the signing and ratification to make the VPA legally binding,' she said.

Science Timber VPA 2 Accra The paper noted that illegal logging, which comprised all activities ranging from harvesting, transporting, purchasing and selling of timber in  violation of national laws, was partially responsible for 85 per cent decrease in forest cover in the country since 1900.
     

It said illegal logging activities included the use of corrupt means to  gain access to the forest, extraction of timber without permission or from  a protected area, cutting of protected species, extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits, fraudulent declaration to customs and the avoidance of taxes and other charges. 
     

The paper said when the VPA became operational, it would provide standards to determine legal timber as against illegal timber and also provide a system of verification and establish institutional arrangements  for the issuance of certificate of legality, which would include certificate of legal compliance (CLC) and certificate of legal origin (CLO).
     

'It will include an updated wood tracking system to trace timber from the forest through to  export - an independent timber validation body will  be established to continuously verify that timber meets the definition of  legality before being granted a licence of legality,' it said.
     

It said the VPA would help to improve forest governance and  management and thereby help to protect Ghana's eco-system, adding  that, it would also make the Ghanaian forest laws more clear, enforceable  and supportive of proper forest management.
     

The paper noted that at the global level, illegal timber trade valued at  $US150 billion a year, represented a tenth of the total global timber trade, saying the illegal logging in Africa varied from 50 per cent in

Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, 70 per cent in Gabon and as high as 80 per cent in Liberia. It said similar VPAs would also be signed on bilateral basis between the EU and those four other African countries from which the EU imported  timber, adding that the move was in response to EU citizens' growing preferences for products from legal rather than suspicious origins.