Legality
For many years the illegal logging and irresponsible trading of tropical timbers, especially coming out of the rain forests of the Western and Central Africa and Amazonia rain forests, has attracted attention of media all over the world.
It has led to more political and economic pressure from the governments of Europe and other developed world to put a pressure on the companies which deals in tropical timber export from those regions. Those companies must prove now the legality and traceability (proving the logging permits, local taxes and duties paid, etc) of timber products they are trading with.
Many African governments have taken similar steps to control legal logging and only to allow traceable timber for export.
SIA Silvex.lv has not yet obtained any of the known international recognized forest certifications schemes (like FSC, PEFC, etc.), however, we can guarantee to our clients, that timber we deliver will only be sourced from well-known and reputable timber companies, which possess such certificates for their own productions in Africa, Brazil or Far East or those companies are able to secure legality & traceability of timber bought from other producers in those areas.
Why is legal and responsible sourcing of timber important?
In the absence of legally and responsibly sourced timber could have led to:
- massive destruction of ancient forests
- major corruption issues resulting in up to $10- 15 billion in lost revenue a year for developing countries and
- supply chains that are not resilient.
This is compounded by the introduction of the EU Timber Regulation in 2013 which means that if timber company is impacted by the regulation as an 'operator' or 'trader' it will have to demonstrate that they have taken all steps possible to ensure it’s timber is from a legal source.
It is important to recognize the difference between legal and responsible when sourcing timber and forest products - they don't always amount to the same thing. The responsible sourcing of timber means that, in addition to assuring that timber or timber products are from a legal origin, that the forest it is sourced from fulfills criteria to demonstrate that it takes full account of the social, environmental (as well as economic) issues that impact it.
The simplest and most robust route to assuring that timber and timber products are legally and responsibly sourced is to specify timber and timber products subject to forest certification schemes, for example Forest Stewardship Council (http://www.fsc.org) and PEFC (http://www.pefc.co.uk).
