RAFT Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade

trading within the law

TRAFFIC regularly holds legality training workshops across Southeast Asia to help companies importing and exporting timber products adhere to national requirements.

This includes teaching businesses how to meet the standards of legislation including the US Lacey Act, EU Timber Regulation, and the Australian Illegal Logging Prohibition Act. National regulations such as these require timber suppliers to provide documentation relating to the origin and species being traded, as well as evidence that due care has been taken to avoid illegal timber in their supply chains. Although strong policies are critically important for mainstreaming responsible forestry and trade, their is often a gap between such policy and its implementation.

We are helping stakeholders ensure adherence to the law through workshops and developing training materials, including via our "Common Legality Framework" – a simple checklist developed to enable governments and companies access and understand relevant aspects of the laws and obligations that affect forestry operations and trade.

training law enforcement

Timber identification, particularly when in various stages of processing, is a challenging task at the best of times. The difficulty in telling the difference between legal and illegal species is a major enabler of illegal timber trade.

Under the RAFT project we've been training Customs and Forestry officials in species identification techniques, as well as ways to help increase their understanding for legal timber trade. We're running workshops and training sessions to help arm officials on the front line with the tools and knowledge necessary to stamp out illegal timber from international supply chains.