Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-197)
MS SASKIA
OZINGA, MR
NATHAN ARGENT,
MR JOHN
SAUVEN, MS
BEATRIX RICHARDS
AND MR
ANDREW LEE
1 NOVEMBER 2005
Q180 Colin Challen: The Saami Council
and the dispute that is ongoing?
Ms Ozinga: I think the main problem
with almost all the certification schemes, particularly the MTCC
and also particularly the PEFC, is their lack of recognition of
indigenous rights. In Malaysia and Sarawak, as Nathan has said,
but also in Peninsula Malaysia there are legal conflicts going
on; in Sarawak there are more than 100 court cases going on about
who owns the land on which this forest is, but the forest is being
logged nonetheless. There are very similar cases in Finland where
the Saami people are in dispute with the government, saying, "This
was our land; we have never given you the consent to log this
land," and the government disputes this. At the moment it
has gone to the European Court of Human Rights, so it is going
to be a European court case shortly. The same is happening actually
in Sweden. Particularly in tropical countries you see that this
is actually the most significant issue and the discussion always
is, "Whose land is this? Who has the right to give anybody
allowance to log this land?" In most countries the government
has assumed that right, often by dictatorships like in Indonesia
and Malaysia, or the local people have always maintained, "No,
we have never given that right away and it is our land."
The whole debate is about native customary rights versus forestry
legislation, which is a conflict in most countries in the tropics
but also in Finland.
Q181 Mr Ainsworth: Mr Lee, in your
opening remarks you touched on the FLEGT process, which you said
was desperately weak and disappointing. Can you very quickly take
us through what has happened to end up with something that you
regard as "desperately weak and disappointing"?
Mr Lee: Yes. There are a series
of tests that we would apply, upon which we think it is failing
at the moment, and Nathan would probably want to speak about it.
Mr Argent: Sorry, could you repeat
the question?
Q182 Mr Ainsworth: On FLEGT the process
of watering down. What exactly has happened to get us to where
you are so disappointed with what we have?
Mr Argent: The process from where
we started, where we had a very strong action plan, to where we
are now, I can only assume over the two-year period that various
interested parties have managed to diffuse some of the wording
and make it weaker, certainly in our view. There are a number
of key points which we could expand right across the Panel where
we feel that FLEGT does not go far enough. One that was highlighted
very well by a Greenpeace report, which we looked at a couple
of weeks back, was the fact that the Voluntary Partnership Agreements
between consumer and producer countries only cover the direct
trade to Europe between, say, the UK and Indonesia or the UK and
Ghana and it did not cover timber products which had been imported
by a third country, such as China. These partnership agreements
only apply to countries that are in these agreements. There are
also concerns that it could possibly lead to the entrenchment
of environmentally and socially destructive forest practices.
We have a country that is very eager to demand timber in the European
Union it could just take blanket action to legalise all forest
practices in a particular country, which, again would have serious
impacts for that particular forest area.
Ms Richards: To come in, in terms
of the actual process that has been happening in the EU, yes,
the initial action plan was very promising; it said all the right
things and it had aims to tackle financial institutions, and it
told all the countries to go away and look at their national legislation
to see what they could do. It mentioned developing research on
possible feasibility of additional legislation to outlaw the import
of illegal timber, and its key cornerstone was this licensing
regulation, which would enable countries to enter into bilateral
agreements with each other and tackle some of the forest governance
issues, and these all seemed to be very promising. But obviously
when you look at what has to happen on the ground in terms of
that, in your licensing regulation you need to also have some
kind of terms for reference for those countries in terms of entering
into the bilateral agreements—they have to be credible.
Unfortunately with the licensing regulation, as it is currently
proposed, we were absolutely amazed to see some of the things
that have been taken out of it. They have taken out full product
coverage, so the agreements that the two countries are going to
agree—let us say the UK and Indonesia—will only cover
sawn wood, plywood and roundwood, and it will not cover things
like pulp and paper, and we all know that the pulp and paper industry
has a huge role to play in the illegal timber supplies—I
think it accounts for about a quarter of the trade coming into
the EU that is illegal. Then also the licensing regulation also
does not take into account the fact that the timber goes via third
countries, so it means that your guy on the ground in Indonesia
will send his timber off to Malaysia or to China and then it gets
converted and it comes into the UK that way. It also does not
take into account the fact that you cannot verify what is happening
on the ground because they are not making independent monitoring
and third party verification mandatory. Independent monitoring
is just somebody being able to check what is happening on the
ground: whether it is legal, how that is operating, how the country
is implementing the legal compliance; and those are the problems
with that process. We are suggesting that in order to fill the
gaps now the only option is to develop this additional legislation
and to make it a crime to import illegal timber into the EU.
Q183 Mr Ainsworth: Why do you not
think that we have that anyway?
Ms Richards: It is not a crime
to import illegal timber into the EU.
Q184 Mr Ainsworth: Why do you think
that that solution has not already been arrived at, instead of
which we are going through this complicated process of licensing
and Voluntary Partnership Agreements and all this sort of thing?
Mr Sauven: You mean why has the
UK Government not taken that decision?
Q185 Mr Ainsworth: Yes. Why do you
think that it is not already illegal to import the stuff into
the United Kingdom?
Mr Sauven: We talked to Elliott
Morley about this two weeks ago and he said, "I am not into
gesture politics," which meant, "If I act independently
and unilaterally without the EU that is just making an empty gesture,"
in terms of the fact that he thought it would just go in through
other European countries and then would be imported here anyway.
Our response to that was twofold, and in fact we have legal advice
from a QC who says not only that the UK under EU legislation could
enact its own national legislation—and there are other countries
like Germany looking at that possibility—but also we could
act on timber that was coming into other EU countries and then
being imported into the UK. I do not see it really as gesture
politics anyway, I actually see the UK Government taking responsibility
and acting tough on this issue and sending a clear message, and
also appealing to other partner countries in the EU to actually
join it, because if one looks at it most of this timber is coming
into the UK anyway, into Tilbury, Liverpool, Felixstowe and so
on, and then it is coming into Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and
some of it is coming into Hamburg. So in fact we could have a
huge effect, a disproportionate effect just because of the amount
of timber coming into the UK and one or two other countries. So
I think that if the UK government did act it would actually send
out a very, very powerful message, and I think it would be very
loud and very clearly felt, not only by producer countries but
by the EU partners as well.
Ms Richards: I just want to come
back in on that. It is about cheap supply; the demand is for cheap
timber, and that is what is driving it, and the UK is as much
a culprit as anybody else in that. Therefore that is why nothing
has happened, because it has been too convenient for our markets
to get in cheap timber. I think that is one of the key reasons,
and it is far too easy; it is a wild stock. There are some parallels
that you can draw with the fishing industry.
Q186 Mr Ainsworth: Going back to
the previous questions, do you know at whose behest all these
changes were made in the various drafts of the licensing agreements
that you went through before? Is it retailers?
Ms Richards: You mean in terms
of the actual structure of the licensing regulation itself?
Q187 Mr Ainsworth: At the EU level.
Ms Richards: Member States have
requested, and there are some countries that have been dragging
their heels very clearly on this, and they are obviously being
lobbied by their own industry sectors, and interested groups in
their own countries. So that is what has happened. There have
probably been about five key countries that have been driving
the process and have wanted various good things in there and then
the rest have been dragging their heels; and then there is also
a certain proportion of countries involved that just have not
had an interest, they are not politically motivated to do something
about it.
Q188 Chairman: This meeting last
week was under the presidency of the UK Government, was it not?
Ms Richards: Yes.
Mr Lee: I think there are parallels
with the whole process on things like chemical regulation, for
instance, where there is no question that action through the EU
would be the most powerful and effective way of tackling this
problem because it is one of the key three trading blocks in terms
of timber and forest products, and getting agreement is obviously
difficult and controversial. But doing something strong and robust
both with the licensing and the control of illegal imports, at
a European level, would be an incredibly powerful driver for market
innovation. It would provide a level playing field for the companies
that are trying to operate responsibly; and it will lend extra
credibility to the certification schemes that are currently robust.
It is desperately needed.
Q189 Mr Ainsworth: Which countries
are dragging their feet?
Ms Ozinga: We are not supposed
to know this but there are definitely a few Scandinavian countries
that have not been very supportive in this process. Another answer
to your question, "Why has this not happened yet?" it
is also because there is no multilateral agreement among countries—there
is certainly no multilateral forest agreement anyway, but certainly
not about illegal logging. There is about paintings and art and
things being stolen. On the one hand that is a reason not to do
anything, and of course for countries that do not want to do anything
that is a very good argument which they will use again and again.
So you will have to get beyond that actually by starting a process
which might in the end, or might not, lead to any multilateral
agreement. But there is a tremendous fear among all EU Member
States, including the UK, I would say, to actually demand things
from importing countries, like they would licence all their exports,
for instance, and not just the export to the EU. Because one of
the problems that Beatrix highlighted is that with the current
licensing scheme you can have an agreement with Malaysia or Indonesia
but if you do not have one with China you will still get all the
Malaysian and Indonesian timber via China. The very easy way around
that is to demand from Indonesia and Malaysia that they licence
all their export and not just that to the EU. That would go a
long way to addressing this problem. But there was no political
will from any of the countries to demand that in the partnership
agreements because they feel that it is forcing what we want on
to those countries, no matter to the fact that it is the local
people who would benefit most from those sorts of measures.
Q190 Mr Ainsworth: Can we just stick
with China because we had evidence last week from the Timber Trade
Federation and discussed the Greenpeace report, which has been
highly critical of imports of timber via China? The Timber Trade
people told us that this plywood is 94-96% poplar core, which
is perfectly legally harvested in China and that there may just
be some veneer on the surface, which is potentially illegal. Is
that your understanding of the situation?
Mr Sauven: It is an interesting
way of putting it. The problem is, yes, if there was just one
plywood mill in China and it was poplar core—it is not all
poplar core, some of it is hardwood but then you put a tropical
hardwood veneer on the top and the bottom of it—and if there
was just one mill, that would be fine. The problem is that in
the one region where we visited where this report was based there
were 9,000 mills. So the extent of this is absolutely massive.
China has come from being quite a small producer of plywood to
now being the world's number one exporter of plywood; it is now
a massive industry. According to the ITTO about five out of every
10 rainforest logs are going into China. So it is not just for
plywood it is also for floorings, for furniture. The same week
that we produced our report Global Witness produced a report about
all the illegal timber going in from Burma's rainforest, and the
extent of that was just unbelievable, the amount of timber pouring
over the border from Burma and just being waved through by the
Chinese Army, by the customs officials and so on and so forth.
So, without doubt, there is a massive laundering exercise going
on there. I think that what was also quite clear is that the timber
trade here did not have a clue from where this plywood was originating
because in fact we went and bought some plywood which we actually
delivered to our environment colleagues here a couple of weeks
ago, and we asked for evidence—
Q191 Mr Ainsworth: I know that somebody
was trying to get into the building at the time!
Mr Sauven: They could go round
the back door, which was actually the front door! The thing is
that we asked for a certificate of legality and we were sent some
paperwork—they did not know it was Greenpeace—and
that paperwork, according to the species on the paperwork, said
that it came from Gabon, from Africa's rainforest, and in fact
it was Bintanga, which had actually come from Papua New Guinea's
rainforest. So even the species was wrong, the continent was wrong
and wrong rainforest. The only thing that showed the origin of
it was the fact that it came from China, but of course we were
not interested in the fact that it came from a mill in China,
we wanted to know where the tropical hardwood veneer had come
from. Of course, when it came to that they did not know.
Q192 Mr Ainsworth: Is there any way
of finding out? Is not the problem so huge—and you have
described it graphically and it is awful—that it is impossible?
Mr Sauven: No, because that is
the whole point of having a certification system. If you have
a chain of custody you know exactly where it is from; FSC will
tell you which tree stump it came from. That is the whole point
of having certification, being able to have proof of legality.
Then of course we would say not just legality but also sustainability.
So if you have a system in place and a robust system in place
it is actually very easy to do it. The thing is that the timber
trade here, more or less all of it, has promised that they would
only sell legal and sustainable timber, and that is the thing
that we get really angry with the Timber Trade Federation about
because they should be dealing with their members. They have signed
up to all these agreements within the Federation and they should
kick them out if they are not going to abide by them. We cannot
be in a situation where we are telling Indonesia and we are telling
Brazil and all these other countries, "Get FSC certification,
clean up your act, get legality and sustainability and then we
will buy your products," and they do all this, go to all
this expense, and then their products remain unsold because they
are being undercut by illegal timber. It is a nonsense and it
is grossly unfair on those countries as well.
Q193 Mr Ainsworth: Can I ask Ms Richards
about the 95+ Group, which you set up in 1991, which is now the
Forest Trade Network, which you referred to earlier? Do you regard
this as having been a success?
Ms Richards: Yes, we do. At the
moment, to give you some figures, as of May 2005 there is now
a Global Forest and Trade Network. Originally it was set up in
the UK in 1991 but it is now global, and the membership consists
of 22 producers, which is a new direction that the group has taken,
in that we are also tackling not just buyers' groups any more,
but also producer groups as well. And we have 365 buyers as well
within our groups, which is driving FSC certified forest now,
delivering about 12.9 hectares, and globally there is 65 million
hectares of FSC certified forest. So we are delivering a good
proportion of that through the GFTN. At the moment we have 31
applicant companies, which will be managing an additional 4.3
million hectares. So it has had a very positive impact and is
an example of the fact that there are certain parts of the industry
that are more than willing to join and are highly motivated to
do so. So that is an important point to make when we talk about
the timber industry. It is a very disparate group of individual
companies; some are very good and some are extremely bad.
Q194 Mr Ainsworth: Some of your members
seem to have a habit of getting into trouble with Greenpeace.
Ms Richards: This is where we
go back to the step-wise approach and the fact that the chain
of supply is complicated. We have confidence that the companies
that are members of the FTN, especially now that we have new,
very stringent rules in place for their membership, obviously
have a pretty complicated chain of supply that they need to be
able to counter, and not all of them are FSC certified yet. There
are some in there that are committed to getting FSC certified,
but at the moment they are only being able to look at to get known
origin of their timber supply, so to know where it comes from,
and then work up to be of legality and up to certification. So
you will have some companies in there that are not 100%.
Q195 Mr Ainsworth: So when Wyevale
or Argos or Homebase receive the attention of our friends from
Greenpeace it is not their fault?
Mr Sauven: Wyevale cleaned up
their act. That is a positive thing.
Ms Richards: I would say that
in a number of cases it may well be that there are some exceptions
to that, that it is not deliberate—I would not say it is
not their fault, it certainly is their fault, but it is not deliberate—and
when these things have happened in those cases these companies
have actually taken corrective measures to try to tackle the issues.
Q196 Mr Ainsworth: You have improved
the scrutiny of the way the scheme works have you not, which I
think was criticised as a lack of transparency?
Ms Richards: Yes, especially in
the early stages when it was set up the policing structures were
not as tight as they should have been, and that has definitely
been improved. In terms of the UK Forest and Trade Network, we
now have a whole set of criteria for engaging with companies,
which they have to follow and they have an annual reporting requirement.
Mr Lee: Which are designed to
ensure that they really are on the pathway that they are talking
about and, also, if they are not we are prepared to throw them
out, as has happened over the last couple of years.
Q197 Mr Ainsworth: You have thrown
some out?
Ms Richards: Yes, we have; I think
we have thrown out three now.
Chairman: On that point I think that
taking responsibility for what happens is a really important aspect
of this and we are very grateful to you for the time you have
given in coming along this afternoon.
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