19 December 2014, Foresteurope news - Trade in illegal timber in a selection of consumer and producer countries is analysed in a recently released series of Chatham House assessments. The consumer countries studied in this research are France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, plus, out of Europe, Japan and United States. Trade in illegal timber in these countries was previously analysed by Chatham House in 2008-09, with the findings published in 2010.
The assessments are based on an analysis of the national policy and legal framework and their implementation; examination of enforcement data; reviews of media coverage; analysis of data on trade between exporter and importer countries; and study of data on voluntary verification and certification by timber companies.
According to the key results of this latest study, the illegal imports of wood in these countries has decreased in recent years, since governments, as well as the private sector, have made efforts to control it. In the assessed European countries, the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Regulation and the EU Timber Regulation are named as examples of legislative measures that partly explain the decrease in illegal timber imports.
Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement, according to the reports' results. In this regard, the provision of enough resources for the enforcement of the existing regulations is one of the key factors.
The reports were released on 25 November 2014 and are available at the following link:http://www.illegal-logging.info/
