Extracted from Malaysiakini.com

Illegal timber trade: 'Engage stakeholders'

Fauwaz Abdul Aziz

Jan 16, 07 12:23pm

Engaging all social and environmental stakeholders should be a central and permanent feature of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) that the European Union (EU) is negotiating with Malaysia under an initiative to stem trade in illegal timber. 

This was among points raised by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for environmental issues and indigenous peoples’ rights. They held a closed-door meeting yesterday with EU officials at the European Commission’s (EC) representative office in
Kuala Lumpur.

The VPA is part of the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade initiative. Malaysian agreed last September to hold formal negotiations toward the bilateral arrangement.

EU negotiators, led by the EC’s Brussels-based international affairs and environment director Soledad Blanco, are in
Malaysia for the first round of talks on Friday with the plantation industries and commodities ministry.

Numerous groups worldwide, however, have criticised the VPA as facilitating timber trade rather than ensuring environmental and social justice.

The NGOs - loosely grouped under the Network of Indigenous Peoples and NGOs on Forest Issues (JoangoHutan) and the Indigenous Peoples’ Network of Malaysia (Joas) - said “full and meaningful engagement” with all stakeholders is “paramount in establishing an acceptable and credible VPA”.

“It is essential that all social and environmental stakeholders ... become involved in processes relevant to forest governance and trade, which include areas of legislative and governance framework, law enforcement and management of forests,” they said in their presentation.

The EU-Malaysia VPA should not only ensure good governance, transparency, accountability, but should also tackle weaknesses and injustices of current laws, policies and forest management, they said further.

The NGO lobby was represented by officials of Sahabat Alam
Malaysia, Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAS), Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) and Orang Asli Association of Peninsular Malaysia.

Sticking points

COAC director Colin Nicholas raised the issue of the process and criteria by which timber licences and certification are issued, saying these have not been adequately scrutinised.

 

“The current certification process is aimed more at the selling of timber for a premium rather than the sustainable exploitation and management of forest resources,” he said when met later.

The process also suffers from lack of independence from the government and is not subject to independent third-party monitoring, such as by indigenous groups and other communities, he said.

Other issues were the authorities’ inconsistent recognition and implementation of Native Customary Rights (NCR), inadequate mechanisms to ensure best practice in environmental management, and weak enforcement against the import into
Malaysia of illegally-sourced timber and the export of such ‘laundered’ timber.

 

CAP legal advisor Meenakshi Raman said it boils down to the question of what constitutes ‘legal’ as opposed to ‘illegal’ timber.

“Much of the timber in question is legal to the Malaysian government and some EU countries but not to us, because it was acquired through the violation of human rights, (for example) as enshrined in the Federal Constitution and in international law,” she told malaysiakini.

Environmental Impact Assessment reports submitted for development projects do not, for example, make public participation mandatory, she noted.

EU backing

EU ambassador to Malaysia Thierry Rommel told malaysiakini that the EU concurs with the NGO call for civil society to be given a permanent role in the VPA, as well as the need to address the violation of NCR.

 

“Consultation with civil society is part and parcel of democracy. The issue of NCR also needs to be resolved,” he said.

Rommel also said the EU is open to the idea of dialogue with the government to discuss any changes required to national legislation in order to conform to the bilateral VPA, when this is finalised.

He said the question of certification and whether current processes and criteria are adequate, are matters to be raised at the negotiating table.

He noted that the Malaysian Timber Certification Council has been recognised by the governments of
France, Denmark, the UK, and the German city of Hamburg.

The EU negotiators will also hold consultations with timber and business bodies, among other groups, ahead of talks with the government.