EIA, Uniting Church and CIEL: Australia Plans to Weaken Ban on Illegal Timber Imports
October 12 2017 - 10:55PM
Business Wire
"Australian consumers should not become the
unwitting accomplices of forest crime"
The Australian Government on October 5 released a controversial
plan to weaken the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act of 2012 (ILPA).
If accepted, wood products from overseas certified by the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Program for Endorsement of Forest
Certification (PEFC) would immediately be accepted for import, and
be exempt from critical information gathering requirements to prove
they were legally harvested.
“The ILPA is already weaker than the international standard set
through laws in the United States and Europe,” said Susanne
Breitkopf of the Washington-based Environmental Investigation
Agency, “and the Australian Government hasn’t even begun yet to
fully enforce it. Now Australia proposes to increase loopholes for
illegal timber to enter the Australian market. While the rest of
the world is moving towards increased traceability in supply
chains, Australia shouldn’t move backwards.”
”Voluntary timber certification cannot replace legal compliance.
Experience in many countries shows that private certification does
not guarantee legality,” said Dr. Mark Zirnsak, social justice
spokesperson for the Uniting Church in Victoria. “The Australian
Parliament must stand firm and reject the provision under which
certified products are automatically deemed to comply with the
law.”
Both PEFC and FSC have repeatedly proven unable to exclude
illegally sourced timber from supply chains. They do not provide
transparent traceability and buyers do not need to know the exact
origin of a product, which makes these schemes susceptible to
fraud. EIA investigators have been offered fraudulently labeled
wood on multiple occasions, notably in China. The case of a large
Austrian timber processor who has been knowingly buying and
processing illegal timber in Romania for many years, while carrying
both the FSC and PEFC certifications, illustrates the problems that
arise when private certification is considered proof of legality.
Both the United States and the European Union have determined that
private certification schemes are not sufficient to comply with the
law.
In its own “Regulation Impact Statement,” the Australian
Government recognizes that “both systems [PEFC and FSC] continue to
face challenges in dealing with deliberate fraudulent activity,”
and that a deemed-to-comply arrangement for these schemes “moves
away from the principle that importers and processors need to
understand their supply chains.” However, the Government has
ignored these findings in making this new proposal, citing
potential cost savings the measure would generate for the
industry.
“The Government’s report itself concedes that the potential 4.2
million in savings might be overstated,” said Breitkopf. “In any
case, any such savings would be dwarfed by the estimated AUD 800
million annual illegal timber imports into Australia. Australia
consumers should not become the unwitting accomplices of forest
crime.” Illegal logging has been ranked the world’s third largest
transnational crime after counterfeiting and drug trafficking,
generating estimated criminal proceeds between AUD 65 billion and
AUD 196 billion.
Earlier this year, 60 organisations from across the globe called
on the Australian Government not to water down the regulations and
to keep existing requirements in place.
“Laws in importing countries can significantly reduce trade in
illegal timber, but they depend on consistency, implementation, and
enforcement by governments to improve sourcing practices of the
private sector,” said Melissa Blue Sky of the Center for
International Environmental Law. “The proposal on certification
sends the wrong signals to the international market.”
In its press release, the government also announced it would
clarify the current due diligence requirements by obliging
companies to carry out risk assessments that “must be ‘reasonable’
and supported by evidence,” a move that could strengthen due care
efforts and was welcomed by the Environmental Investigation Agency,
Uniting Church in Victoria, and the Center for International
Environmental Law. Australia is scheduled to finally begin full
enforcement of the ILPA in January 2018.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171012006540/en/
Uniting ChurchMark Zirnsak, +61 409 166
915Mark.Zirnsak@victas.uca.org.auorEnvironmental Investigation
AgencySusanne Breitkopf, +1 202
3905586sbreitkopf@eia-global.org