Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 9 • Number 22 • 14th December 2009

Indonesia-EU Timber Talks take Step Backward

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

Indonesia says it will place a priority on “good governance,” rather than a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) with the EU as a means to tackle illegal logging in the country. Government representatives say the country will be closely monitoring the functioning of the EU-Ghana VPA - finalised last month - to better understand how a similar deal would affect Indonesia.

The comments emerged from a 30 November-1 December bilateral meeting aimed at assessing the state of play following three years of negotiations. When discussions began in January 2007, negotiators believed they could have a deal signed by January 2008.

“We haven’t set a deadline as to when we will sign the VPA,” Hadi Daryanto, Indonesia’s chief delegate to the talks, told reporters attending the talks. Observers say Daryanto’s remarks suggest Indonesia is not as committed to establishing a VPA as they once were.

However, Julian Wilson, the EU Ambassador who headed the talks was more optimistic, saying that much progress has been made already. Wilson said the VPA would be greatly beneficial to Indonesia.

Indonesia is a major global timber exporter with one-third of its products destined for EU markets.

VPAs lie at the core of the European Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan - the EU’s response to a call for action at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Under the plan, timber exports from VPA signatory countries are fast tracked through EU customs because of the agreed measures and third-party audits that are meant to ensure only legally harvested timber enters the system.

VPA negotiations between the EU and African countries Ghana and Republic of Congo have progressed relatively smoothly, while discussions with major tropical timber exporting countries in Southeast Asia - such as Malaysia and Indonesia - have hit stumbling blocks. The expected signing date of a Malaysia-EU deal has been pushed back numerous times (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 21 August 2009, http://ictsd.org/i/news/biores/53363/).

Jakarta currently has a system in place to combat illegal logging. However, contraband timber continues to be serious problem in the country. According to a study released by US-based NGO Human Rights Watch on 1 December, more than half of all Indonesian timber is harvested from illegal sources. The report also said illegal logging resulted in some US2 billion in annual losses between 2003 and 2006.

Because there is currently no EU law preventing illegally harvested wood from entering the European market, environmentalists are cautiously optimistic about voluntary agreements, like the one between the EU and Ghana.

VPAs do not violate world trade rules because the deals are both voluntary and bilateral.

ICTSD Reporting; “RI reluctant to sign EU accord against illegal logging,” THE JAKARTA POST, 2 December 2009.