FIRA reports that February saw over 30 delegates representing various trade associations, retailers, manufacturers, timber merchants, DEFRA, EUTR enforcement agency National Monitoring and Regulations Office (NMRO) gather in London to discuss the ongoing requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which aims to prohibit placing illegally harvested timber and products derived from such timber on the EU market.
Closely related to EUTR, the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Regulation establishes rules for the import of timber products covered by Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) between the EU and timber-exporting countries. Once VPAs are fully implemented, timber-exporting countries will issue FLEGT licences which verify the timber’s legality – this would mean that an operator importing timber and timber products that have a valid FLEGT licence would not have to carry out additional due diligence because these products would be regarded as being legally harvested under the EUTR.
Indonesia is likely to be the first country to ship FLEGT-licenced timber and timber products to the EU, and licensing is expected to commence in 2016.
Anyone importing FLEGT-licensed timber will be required to obtain the FLEGT licence and input the licence details into a dedicated UK FLEGT website before the timber arrives in the UK. When inputting the licence details, they will also be required to pay a fee of £31 per licence via a secure platform on the website.
FIRA Members can download the full meeting report here.
FIRA has been assisting the industry to meet its legal requirements under EUTR for the last three years, and has extensive knowledge and experience in working with companies from various sectors. The company runs training courses and complete gap analyses of businesses, and can help companies set up EUTR due diligence systems and assist them in fulfilling their risk assessment obligations.
FIRA's next EUTR training session will be held on the 21st April.
