Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 10 • Number 2 • 5th February 2010
Indigenous Groups Resist EU-Malaysia Timber Trade Deal
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The European Union and Malaysia had hoped to conclude negotiations on deal to combat trade in illegal timber by the end of 2009, but the deadline has been pushed back to this summer. Government officials report that there are just a few technical details to resolve, but indigenous groups say the deal now on the table is fundamentally flawed.
The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) is part of the European Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. The bilateral deal aims to ensure that only licensed Malaysian timber is traded in the EU, an attempt to halt the trade of illegally harvested timber and to encourage sustainable forest management.
Indigenous groups in Malaysia have raised significant resistance to the VPA. They criticise the EU for its willingness to sign the trade agreement. Their concern is not with the attempt to halt illegal logging but with the definition of what constitutes legal logging in the first place.
The two NGOs, Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia and Jaringan Orang Asal dan NGO Tentang Isu-isu Hutan (JANGOHutan), reject the deal’s definition of the source of harvested timber as legal based on existing laws. They assert that this disregards how logging licences have often been issued on land claimed by indigenous communities without their ‘free, prior, and informed consent’.
Last March, the indigenous groups walked out of the multi-stakeholder consultations being held by the Malaysian government in protest.
Speaking in Kuala Lumpur last week, Vincent Piket, the Head of the EU delegation to Malaysia, dismissed fears that the NGOs’ boycott would delay the negotiations beyond July. The groups’ concerns are being heard, he said, noting that the NGOs had met with Plantation, Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok at the end of 2009.
The Malaysian government expects the agreement to help Malaysian timber exporters. The licences-which will prove the legality and sustainability of their products-will give them a ‘green lane’ to the European market, officials have said.
The EU is currently the third-most important destination for Malaysian timber. As of 2009, Malaysia exported RM 2.8 billion (€600 million) of wood products to the EU each year.
The European Commission estimates that one-fifth of the timber that enters the EU is illegally harvested. Worldwide, total loss of forest cover causes nearly 20 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU previously signed VPAs with Ghana in September 2008 and the Republic of Congo in May 2009. It is also negotiating VPAs with Cameroon and Indonesia. Informal discussions have also begun with multiple African, Asian, and Latin American timber-producing countries.
The EU has been negotiating the VPA with Malaysia since 2007. If signed, it will be the first such deal in Asia.
ICTSD reporting; “EU, Malaysia Make Substantial Progress in VPA Talks,” BERNAMA, 25 January 2010: “NGOs upset with EU’s stand on disputed timber,” THE STAR, 27 January 2010; “EU and Malaysia in Final Phase of Timber Trade Talks,” BUSINESS TIMES, 26 April 2009.
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If one considers Malaysia’s exports to the EU of products which must as a minimum be included within a VPA - logs, sawn wood, veneer and plywood - then:
1) for 2008, the EU ranked seventh largest destination (not the third) in terms of roundwood equivalent volume (RWE volume is an estimate of the volume of logs likely to have been used in making those products). In terms of export value, the EU ranked second (at Euro 280 million - half the total cited in the article, the difference being attributable largely to wooden furniture, most of which is from rubberwood plantations and consequently scarcely relevant to efforts to minimise trade in unsustainable and/or illegal timber).
2) the EU accounted for about 6% of the RWE volume exported from Malaysia between 2000 and 2008 (and probably less during 2009). In terms of export value, the EU’s share was almost double (11%). The difference reflects the mix of products exported to the EU.