Dear Editor,
Perhaps the FAO Country Representative, Dr Lystra Paul, could clarify her remarks reported in ‘Pact signed for US$65,000 forest law enforcement programme’ (SN, April 24)? ‒ “She alluded to the fact that at least two companies in Guyana, Barama Company Ltd being one of them, has been certified by the EU according to these criteria and are now able to trade with the EU.”
The Tropical Forest Trust worked with Barama to enable that company to be audited against a standard for Verification of Legal Origin (VLO) by the Rainforest Alliance. The requirements of the standard have not been published by the Tropical Forest Trust, nor has the audit report of July 2012 been published by either Barama or the Rainforest Alliance. Long before this audit, the Rainforest Alliance was phasing out VLO and concentrating on its Verification of Legal Compliance (VLC) standard so the relevance of the VLO is questionable. In any case, the European Union’s Timber Regulation (EUTR, number 995/2010 dated 20 October 2010) does not allow for such private certification to bypass its own requirements. An operator – that is, the organization which is the importer of the specified wood products into the European Union – must demonstrate risk assessment as part of due diligence to prevent illegally harvested wood products from entering the EU.
Specifically, the EUTR requires evidence per shipment or per operator, in Article 6 (1) (a) –
►“description, including the trade name and type of product as well as the common name of tree species and, where applicable, its full scientific name;
►“country of harvest, and where applicable:
(i) sub-national region where the timber was harvested; and
(ii) concession of harvest;
►“quantity (expressed in volume, weight or number of units);
►“name and address of the supplier to the operator;
►“name and address of the trader to whom the timber and timber products have been supplied;
►“documents or other information indicating compliance of those timber and timber products with the applicable legislation.”
In other words, it is not enough to say that some months or years ago a supplier in Guyana received a VLO certificate from an independent auditor. Instead, the supplier must provide the operator-importer with verifiable evidence that each particular shipment has been compliant. The only certificates acceptable at the EU border in place of the evidence listed in the bullet points above are timber legality assurance certificates issued under a bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) in the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) programme and conservation status certificates issued under CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.
Guyana is beginning the long process of negotiating a VPA; some of the documents are on the website of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC). CITES certificates are not presently relevant to Guyana; the GFC opposed a CITES listing for greenheart several years ago with the astonishing argument that not enough was known about the conservation status of greenheart trees.
So Barama and Variety Woods (the other holder of the Rainforest Alliance VLO certificate) are no different from any other Guyana-based supplier of wood products to the EU, including digger mats to The Netherlands. Their operator-importers in the EU have needed since March 1, 2013 the information listed by the EU Timber Regulation, or they risk heavy penalties if shipments are found to be non-compliant.
Is this another paper threat from the EU? I suggest not. A complaint was registered about a timber shipment from Liberia immediately the EUTR came into force. And the discovery of 800 pounds of cocaine hidden in digger mats manufactured in Soesdyke will have alerted EU Customs to the unreliability of GFC pre-export checks.
Yours faithfully,
Janette Bulkan
