APEC: Enhance the capacity for identifying illegal timber and wood products

Delegates participated in the workshop on Customs best practices to identify illegal timber and wood products. Photo: Thanh Thuy

On behalf of Vietnam Administration of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Mr. Nguyen Van Ha, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Administration of Forestry made opening remarks to welcome all delegates in the workshop today.

The content of this workshop are discussed some issues including Protocols and methodologies for targeting illegal wood shipment; Best practices for forensic timber identification for Customs Professionals; Legal wood product certification programs; Protocols for documentation and data review to monitor compliance and wood product legality; Traceability systems and sectoral approaches to combatting illegal timber; Taking appropriate action in the event of an illegal wood product shipment.

In fact, the growth of the import and export of timber and furniture worldwide develop significantly over the past years. According to the statistics of the International Trade Council (ICT), in 2016, the global export turnover of timber reached $US 127 billion, increasing by 7,9% in comparison with that of 2012; the global export turnover of furniture reached $US 233 billion, increasing by 10.8% in comparison with that of 2012. Regarding import turnover, in 2016, the global import turnover of timber and furniture reached $US 131 billion and $US 221 billion respectively, increasing by 4.2% and 12.8% respectively in comparison with those of 2012.

However, we are also extremely concerned when it is reported that illegal timber trade approximately accounted for 10 to 30% of the global timber trade, with the value of $US 100 to $US 300 billion annually. In spite of the great effort of countries, especially APEC Economies, to combat illegal logging and trade in timber products, the smuggling and illegal cross-border transportation of timber and timber products, especially timber harvested from natural forests, have been continuously taking place in many sophisticated ways and forms.

The illegal logging and trade in timber products have significantly caused deforestation, forest degradation and loss of biodiversity as well as threatened the livelihoods of forest dependent local communities in harvesting countries. Meanwhile, the illegal logging and trade in timber products have also caused serious social, political and economic consequences and weakened the forest management and efforts towards effective forest governance both globally and inside APEC particularly.

Mr. Nguyen Van Ha, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Administration of Forestry, also mentioned about the limitations in Vietnam currently. Accordingly, timber is a very specific item with a diversity of species, types, and names leading to the limitation of the investigation, inspections, and verification of timber products of Customs authorities. Customs authorities have only measured and checked timber by eyes and are often not able distinguish different types of timber. The lack of advanced technologies and effective tools to help Customs staffs distinguish types of timber, lack of reputable information sources and lack of international cooperation measures are barriers to the combat of illegal timber trade globally and inside APEC particularly.

Hence, one of the most effective measures to prevent illegal timber trade which is increasingly sophisticated is to strengthen anti-smuggling activities of Customs. Recently, Vietnam Customs has enhanced the management of importer timer dossiers, collected information on enterprises whose violations in timber trade have been recorded for updating the customs risk management system; classified high-risk enterprises and individuals in timber import and export for timely control measures. Moreover, Customs has also attached great importance to international cooperation in order to exchange specialized information and customs intelligence information for the purpose of the investigation, verification, and analysis of hot spots in anti-smuggling of timber and wildlife.