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Policy briefs
#1 - "Implementing FLEGT, impacts on local people" (Wiersum & van Oijen, 2010) resulting from the October 2009 Accra Seminar: Timber legality, local livelihoods and social safeguards: implications of FLEGT/VPA in Ghana
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Who bears the brunt when timber legislation is enforced?
Illegal logging and related trade is a daily practice in many timber-producing countries. A wide variety of actors is involved: from reputable timber companies to timber barons that go for cheap and easy profits to local people providing for their day to day needs. Increased international attention on the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of illegal logging has led to the development of timber legality programs to tackle the global problem of illegal timber trade. This has been widely cheered by industry, governments and NGOs alike. Who could possibly be against legal timber trade?
However, there lies a clear ambiguity in the focus on legality and law enforcement. Though well intended to save forest and improve forest governance, timber legality programs might turn out to increase poverty among thousands of people involved in informal and often illegal logging practices for their daily income and survival. Mainly because many forest-related practices are officially illegal, though tolerated. This has so far received little attention in the development of timber legality programs and might undermine their implementation.
The European Commission (EC) launched the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan in 2003 to combat illegal logging and related trade. The cornerstone of FLEGT is the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs): tailor made agreements between individual timber exporting countries and the EU to ensure trade in verified legal timber products. VPAs aim to stimulate good governance, strengthen land tenure and access rights and increase effective participation of all stakeholders. This should help lead the way to sustainable forest management.
This policy brief outlines the need and possibilities for further developing the FLEGT action plan by explicitly considering livelihood issues and incorporating social safeguards. It is based on work within the “Illegal or Incompatible” research project funded by the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation. The project assesses the consequences of timber legality programs on local livelihoods. It is a partnership between Wageningen University and Research Centre, Tropenbos International and research organizations in Ghana and Indonesia. This policy brief is mainly based on the project findings in Ghana. This country was the first to ratify a VPA with the EU and hence offers an excellent opportunity to assess how livelihood issues are being dealt with in the FLEGT action plan.
This policy brief consists of three parts:
• Part 1. Legal timber and local livelihoods
• Part 2. Social safeguards: protecting people
• Part 3. Governance regimes for timber legality
#2 - Social safeguards in the Ghana-EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA). Triggering improved forest governance or an afterthought?
