Logging FAQs
David Amador, a small-scale farmer in Olancho, Honduras, holding illegally logged timber (photo © Omar Banegas/Progressio)
Why is Progressio concerned about illegal logging?
Illegal logging has serious consequences. Its high environmental cost in terms of the loss of biodiversity, soil cohesion and water retention can make it seem like a purely ‘green’ issue, but there’s also a major hidden human cost.
For campesinos, small-scale farmers, the forests are vital. They regulate water supplies and help to stop landslides. The loggers who cut down trees illegally often use violent tactics to get their own way, risking the lives of the local community. At a wider scale, forests help combat climate change which is already having significant consequences for small-scale farmers all over the world.
So illegal logging is vital in the fight against poverty since it sits at the intersection of local and global environmental sustainability, work to protect the livelihoods of small-scale farmers, efforts to uphold human rights and the rule of law, and work to improve governance. There are a lot of good reasons to end the practice.
What has Progressio already done to help?
Progressio has helped to ban illegal logging before. Progressio development workers in Honduras helped local communities come together to push for strong legislation against illegal logging, even drafting legislation for submission to the Honduran government. A strong forestry law was passed in 2008, giving poor people a tool to fight back. But addressing the issues at source is only half the work.
This MEP action is the final step in our summer campaign against illegal logging. Progressio campaigners have already phoned and emailed members of the European Parliament Environment Committee, emailed Environment Committee draftswoman Caroline Lucas and written to DEFRA Minister Caroline Spelman. Now it's time for the final push.
What might be the impact of this legislation?
We can look to the last time legislation like this was passed. The recent Amendment to the USA's Lacey Act in May 2008 made it the world’s first law banning the import, export, or commerce in illegally sourced plant products, including timber and wood products.
In Honduras the impact of those amendments was immediate. Alex Melendez, deputy mayor of Campamento, said recently: “After the Lacey Act we know that eight distribution centres in the USA owned by Hondurans closed down because no-one was buying illegal timber… Also after Lacey furniture businesses went out of business because demand for their illegally logged wood dried up.”
Work to end the practice is still needed so that corrupt officials cannot merely ‘launder’ the wood, but strong EU regulations will be a significant step forward.
Why is acting now so urgent?
This is our chance. Last year the timber companies beat a proposed ban, working with timber import countries to delay European legislation. But this year the Parliament and Council of Ministers have negotiated strong laws again and some sectors of the timber industry as well as the UK, Denmark, Belgium and Spain have come out in favour of an outright ban.
The existing patchwork of individual state-based legislation and voluntary codes plays into rogue traders’ hands. We believe only EU-wide prohibition with criminal sanctions provides the surest way to end the European trade in illegally-logged timber. So this is it – we’ve got until 5th July to make our views known.
The illegal European timber trade is exposed in this detailed WWF report
