Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange
Holiday Inn Prague Congress Centre, Prague, Czech Republic
Since 2012, Forest Trends and Chatham House have been working with officials from EU Member States and US Lacey enforcement agencies, to further understanding of complex high-risk supply chains for wood products and support coordinated implementation of the EU Timber Regulation and US Lacey Act. These two workstreams have merged into a process called the Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange (TREE), an ongoing series of networking and information-sharing meetings, which bring the growing group of officials together every six months.
The TREE process aims to support robust and consistent enforcement of demand-side timber regulations by providing a forum for officials to gain detailed insight into high- and low-risk timber flows entering their countries, discuss practical enforcement issues with each other and relevant experts from the forest sector and other relevant product/environmental sectors, establish emergent norms for Due Diligence/care in relation to different forest products, and build relationships with producer country governments, industry representatives, and other stakeholders involved in combating illegal logging and promoting global markets for legal timber.
This meeting included sessions on the risks and compliance options for sourcing of forest products along the EU’s Eastern borders, as well as Cameroon, Myanmar, and Peru, and also included updates on legislative developments in Indonesia, Korea, and Taiwan.
Previous TREE Meetings:
- September, 2015 – Vienna, Austria
- April, 2015 – Barcelona, Spain
- October, 2014 – Rome, Italy
- March, 2014 – London, UK
Resources
Tuesday, April 5 (morning): Introductions and Updates
Introduction to EU Timber Regulation
Natalie Benesova, Ministry of Agriculture, Czech Republic
Parul Patel, US Dept. of Agriculture, APHIS
Illegal Logging Prohibition Act
Teresa McMaugh, Dept. of Agriculture and Water Resources, Australia
Tuesday, April 5 (afternoon): Asian Legislative Developments and Myanmar Risks and Due Diligence Systems
Legislative Developments in Indonesia
Sigit Pramono, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia
Legislative Developments in Korea
Hong Gi, Korea Forest Service
Kerstin Canby, Forest Trends
GTF Update and IWPA’s Perspective on Myanmar
Rachel Butler and Cindy Squires, Global Timber Forum (GTF) and International Wood Products Association (IWPA)
Wednesday, April 6: Eastern Europe and the Balkans
Serbia: Forest Control Structure and Production for Export
Dusan Jovic, Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, Serbia
Illegality Risk in Sourcing from Russia and Ukraine
Brian Milakovsky, WWF International
EUTR in the Czech Republic: Lessons Learned
Jan Doubal, Forest Management Institute
Due Diligence Lessons: Our Experience with PEFC Certification and EUTR
Klara Popovova, Herrmann & Vogel s.r.o.
U.S. v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc.
Patrick Duggan, US DOJ, Environmental Crimes Section
Lorenzo Segato, RiSSC/TREES Project
Thursday, April 7: Cameroon
Eve Richer, Forest Trends
Cameroon: Due Diligence in Practice
Alexandra Banks, NEPCon
EUTR Enforcement in relation to Cameroon Wood Imports
Filip Verbelen, Greenpeace
Community-driven Forest Monitoring Platforms: An Emerging Resource, A Need for Feedback
Andrea Johnson, Independent Consultant
Lathams Due Diligence: Cameroon
Ewa Bazydlo, Lathams, UK
Friday, April 8: Peru
Peru: Preliminary Risk Findings
Alexandra Banks, NEPCon
U.S. Forest Service Cooperation with Peru
Shelley Gardner, US Forest Service
GLAD Alerts and Risk Assessment: Global Forest Watch Tools for Timber Monitoring
Mikaela Weisse, World Resources Institute
Certification and Responsible Exports
Juliane Lemcke, Import Promotion Desk Germany