活动名称：木艺木趣国际研讨会暨展览会
时间地点：2011年10月20日，印度班加罗尔J N Tata多功能礼堂
演讲嘉宾：Aimi Lee Abdullah
演讲题目：Meeting Market Requirements for Legal Timber

摘要：Since the major event of the June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment & Development (UNCED) or Earth Summit (or Rio Summit), discussions and debates on legal international regimes that have impacts on forests have continued at various multilateral fora.

The EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance & Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan was launched in 2003.  The centerpiece of the Plan is a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) to be agreed bilaterally between the EU and a timber exporting partner country.  Once signed, the VPA is legally-binding.  

It was in October 2010 that the EU Timber Regulation to ban illegal timber and to require EU importers to exercise “due diligence” in determining and assuring legality of timber imports was politically agreed and adopted by the European Council, i.e. by the Governments of the 27 EU member States.  The requirement to meet this Regulation will be EU-wide, affecting all companies importing timber and timber products into EU Member States. After going through all the formalities of the European and national institutions, the legislation would come into force, after adoption by EU member state governments, by March 2013.  This Regulation is a very strong market instrument to improve forest governance and the legal and regulatory framework in timber exporting countries.  

India has a strong economic outlook and with the predicted continued rise in per capita income and the growth of the middle class, India will see significant increases in consumption, including that for timber.   There is a global shift towards sustainable consumption and production.  As home to some of the most rapidly expanding wood processing sector industries, will India be ready to go for responsible and sustainable timber consumption?

Aimi Lee is Policy Analyst at the European Forest Institute’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance & Trade (FLEGT) Asia Regional Support Programme. FLEGT Asia is funded by the European Union (EU) and seeks to support the bilateral processes between the EU and tropical timber producing countries towards signing and implementing Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) for the entry of legally verified timber onto the European market.