Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 4 • Number 7 • 16th April 2004
EU Governments Criticised for Illegal Logging
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On 6 April WWF launched a new online report on the efforts of European governments to prevent illegal logging. The WWF report, entitled “Government Barometer“, concludes that none of the twelve investigated European countries do enough to combat illegal logging. Although most EU governments support EU-wide efforts to prevent illegal logging, such as the Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) launched in May last year, they fail to implement domestic measures. The “Government Barometer” raises concerns that the amount of imported illegally logged timber might increase after the EU enlargement through imports from Russia, entering the EU via the accession countries. Half of the timber imported to the EU comes from Russia and Eastern Europe, a large proportion of which is likely to be illegally harvested. Europe’s imports of illegally sourced timber are believed to be worth EUR 1.2 billion per year. The WWF online barometer can be used to follow both the domestic and EU-wide actions taken by individual governments to prevent illegal logging. The scoring on the website shows that the UK rates highest among the 12 countries. Denmark, Germany and Sweden are credited with moderate performance, while Austria, Finland, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Portugal are rated poorly.
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