European Parliament Passes Due Diligence Legislation

The European Parliament confirmed the ban on the sale of illegally-harvested timber, along with traceability measures and sanctions last week. The new law aims to reduce illegal deforestation and give consumers better assurances about the products they buy. Satu Hassi, the Finnish Green MEP, who took over parliamentary responsibility for this legislation from former British MEP Caroline Lucas after she was elected to the UK Parliament, said, “EU legislation to ban the sale of illegally-sourced timber represents a major international breakthrough, from the forests around the world that are ravaged by illegal logging to the EU market where timber and wood products are sold. The tough rules agreed would not have been possible without the strong backing of the European Parliament.” The new legislation bans illegally-harvested timber or timber products from being placed on the EU market. This will prevent such wood from effectively being laundered once it reaches the EU. Currently, at least 20% of timber and timber products reaching the EU market is estimated to come from illegal sources. Member States will be responsible for applying sanctions to operators who break the rules. The legislation sets out guidelines for imposing fines: the environmental damage caused, the value of the timber and lost tax revenue can all be taken into consideration. EU countries can also impose criminal penalties; the Coalition Government has already committed to make importing or holding illegal timber a criminal offence. To ensure traceability, each operator along the supply chain will need to declare from whom they bought timber and to whom they sold it. The Council of Ministers has already informally agreed with the Parliament’s draft, but will need to rubber stamp it before it can pass into law. The rules are expected to take effect in late 2012 to allow the timber timber industry time to adapt.