Governance and the Depoliticisation of Development by Robison Richard Hout Wil

Author:Robison, Richard,Hout, Wil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2011-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

International and regional trade model

The expansion of illegal and quasi-legal timber flows has met with some opposition from a new model of forestry governance focused on assuring the legality of trade. This model stresses that consumers are the ultimate source of the problem and that without demand there would not be a market. Thus, like conflict diamonds, illegal or conflict timber should be addressed via the market. At one level, this model builds on the industrial model by focusing on the legality of trade. It also adheres to the neo-liberal model that ‘rule of law’ is pre-eminent and becomes the most prominent yardstick by which the good governance of the forestry sector is measured.

The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade process was established (FLEGT 2007). It is administered by the European Union due to the EU and UK’s greater concern for issues of legality and ecological sustainability in trade. The FLEGT strategy has followed the burgeoning of bilateral free-trade agreements in its reliance on voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) between exporter and importer nations. The basic elements of the VPA approach are legal production of timber and a verifiable chain of custody from the forest to mill to market.

There are significant limitations of VPAs and the FLEGT approach. First, implementation has been painstakingly slow. As of 2008, only Indonesia had moved beyond the discussion stage and established a legality standard. None of the countries has a chain of custody system, verification system, licence-issuing authority or an independent authority.

Second, there are limitations with the assumptions of an approach relying on ‘green’ or ‘eco-sensitive’ trade. As of yet, importers in Asia have been notoriously insensitive. Although Japan passed a government procurement policy requiring all forest goods and services purchased by the state to be harvested in a legal and sustainable manner, it has relied on BRIK’s and the Indonesian government’s standard of legality. Chinese imports of timber have been booming, and during some periods of the last several years, there has been significant illegal trade with China (EIA/Telapak 1999).

Finally, even NGOs are divided on the efficacy of voluntary trade regulatory approaches. Some, large international ones like WWF, WRI and TNC are attempting gradually to build sustainable trade networks. Others, inside Indonesia and internationally, worry that FLEGT does not address deeper problems of community rights, corruption and the gap between supply and demand in the forestry industry.

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