Voluntary Partnership Agreement Research Articles

The timber legality verification system and the voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) in Indonesia: Challenges for the small-scale forestry sector

Indonesia is at the forefront of countries implementing voluntary partnership agreements (VPA) with the EU in order to meet legal requirements under the EU Timber Regulation. Since 2009, the forestry authorities have been working to establish a timber legality verification system called SVLK. This system became mandatory for large-scale forestry enterprises on 1 January 2013, while small-scale operators had until 1 January 2014 to comply. While the progress with SVLK certification among large-scale timber enterprises has been considerable, timber legality verification in the small-scale sector lags behind. There continues to be a significant degree of illegality in small-scale forestry operations and stakeholders' understanding of SVLK and the VPA is limited. Many small-scale timber businesses are reluctant to pursue certification and formalize their operations because of concerns about additional costs and uncertainty about the benefits.Achieving timber legality compliance in the Indonesian forestry sector will not be easy. However, by applying a phased approach, providing more information to stakeholders, expanding verification bodies' capacity, simplifying the SVLK process and making it more financially attractive it is possible to make progress.

Barriers to VPA implementation: a case study of Cameroon's private forestry sector

SUMMARY The development and operationalization of timber tracing and legality verification systems are an important objective of FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade) Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs). These systems are developed at the national level in order to ensure that all relevant timber circulating in the country meets the legality requirements agreed upon in the VPA. To date, no country that has signed a VPA has fully implemented these VPA systems. Using a qualitative methodological approach, this paper explores the perceived barriers to VPA implementation according to Cameroon's private forestry sector. The paper applies an analytical framework for forest rule compliance in order to better understand the institutional and individual constraints facing VPA implementation. The study identifies the following barriers to VPA implementation in Cameroon: corruption, informal nature of domestic sector, non-sensitive timber demand, technicalities of VPA/LAS, high cost of legality and...

FLEGT VPAs: Laying a pathway to sustainability via legality lessons from Ghana and Indonesia

The long-term objective of the 2003 EU FLEGT Action Plan was to ensure a legal trade of timber products within and between countries and, by doing so, clear a pathway towards global sustainability and good governance. Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) between the EU and producing countries have emerged as a primary tool for achieving these goals. VPAs combine legality licensing as a market-based approach to stem illegal harvesting and trade with multi-stakeholder processes that seek to address underlying problems of forest governance, including unclear or contradictory forest related laws and weak community rights.We explore whether the EU FLEGT pathway from legality to sustainability is being laid down through VPAs by drawing on case studies of Ghana and Indonesia. These countries are among the first to agree VPAs and are currently working towards the issuance of FLEGT licenses for timber product exports to the EU. The paper uses a critical socio-legal approach that focuses not only on the negotiation of VPA text, but also on the implications of that text for how VPA policies will be interpreted, enacted and contested in their implementation.Our analysis indicates that both countries are adopting a uniform approach driven by the technical verification requirements needed to license timber for export. This overemphasis on timber licensing fails to address the leading role of the agricultural sector in driving forest loss, constrains civil society participation and creates disproportionate market barriers for local producers. We conclude that a more sustainable approach requires balancing trade-based licensing of large industry with other governance models more appropriate for small-scale operators and domestic markets.

Forest Offence Types, Trends and Lapses: Case Study of the Nkawie Forest District of Ghana from 2005-2010

The documented analysis of the forest offences revealed eight forest offence types with prevalent cases being chainsaw milling, illegal logging and illegal farming. Between 2005 and 2010, the district recorded 121 offences with more offences occurring in the on-reserve areas than in the off-reserve areas. The timber species, which was most exploited illegally is Triplochiton scleroxylon (wawa), a scarlet star-rated species, which is under imminent economic threat. Analyses of the official records revealed lapses in record keeping since there are no references to the outcomes of most offences, especially those relating to cases under investigation by the Police and Regional Forest Services Division. A call for capacity development of the frontline staff of the Forest Services Division at the District levels is paramount especially in detecting, collecting, entering and analyzing forest offences cases and outcomes as well as training in forest investigation and incident management. Furthermore, equipping the district offices with the requisite technological equipment like computers and accessories, software and real-time Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers will enhance effective monitoring and data management of forest resources especially when Ghana is committed in ensuring timber legality under the Voluntary Partnership Agreement.

Die EU Timber Regulation und ihre Konsequenzen für die Schweiz

The EU Timber Regulation and its implications for Switzerland In 2012, almost 96% of all Swiss wood exports were delivered into the European Union (EU). Since March 3rd, 2013, these exports are subject to the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). Besides the Voluntary Partnership Agreements, this regulation constitutes the second policy package under the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan (EU-FLEGT). The first part of this paper discusses the aims of the new timber regulation as a measure to combat illegal logging and illegal timber trade. The second part builds on expert interviews that were conducted with representatives of the industry, ministries, inter-trade organizations, as well as a politician and summarizes first experiences since the implementation of the policy as well as expected implications for the Swiss timber export sector. Moreover, four possible courses of action for Switzerland that were raised in the expert interviews are discussed: 1) integrating the EU Timber Regulation into the regulation on the declaration of wood and wood products, 2) creating a Swiss Timber Regulation in the course of the revision of the environmental protection law, 3) proactively providing information while avoiding a change of laws, and 4) a government guarantee for Swiss wood.

Impacts of the Lacey Act Amendment and the Voluntary Partnership Agreements on illegal logging: implications for global forest governance

Abstract Illegal logging has negatively impacted environmental, economic, and social conditions in forests around the world. Various policies have been stymied owing to the complex web of timber harvesting, processing, manufacturing, and consumption cutting across developed and developing countries. We examine the potential impacts of new initiatives that directly address illegal timber trade by the two largest importers, primarily the ‘Lacy Act Amendment’ (LAA) by the US and the ‘Voluntary Partnership Agreements’ (VPAs) by the EU. We assess their effects on economy-wide welfare, prices of wood and paper products, and timber harvests in individual countries/regions and the world. We estimate that the LAA and VPAs, by themselves, would have moderate impacts on reducing illegal logging (0.1–8.35% reductions in timber harvests in the countries with high illegal logging rates). Broader cooperation among producer and consumer countries and alignment of existing forest governance mechanisms with illegal logging control measures are critical to create synergies.

Ambiguity in Timber Trade Regarding Efforts to Combat Illegal Logging: Potential Impacts on Trade between South-East Asia and Europe

Raised public concern in the European Union (EU) about the legality of its timber imports has pushed the European Commission to raise its standards and legality demands for wood imports. Combining literature reviews, structured interviews and trade data analyses, this study assesses the potential influence from Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) (with its Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) system and new legislation EU Timber Regulation (EUTR)), and third party verification schemes on the timber trade between tropical countries and Europe. These instruments have the potential to reduce the amount of illegally sourced timber being placed on the market, and they seem to have resulted in both increasing support of legality verification and certification uptake. However, there are signs of increased ambiguity in trade that could originate as a side effect of the transition towards a stricter regulation for tropical timber. Such ambiguity is explicitly taken into account here. Possible consequences from increased ambiguity are substitution of oak lumber for tropical hardwood lumber, and a diversion of exports of tropical timber to destinations with a less stringent regulatory framework than the EU. Evidence of these trade patterns in the literature reviews, interviews, and trade data analyses seems to confirm that ambiguity in international trade markets has actually increased since the introduction of these instruments.

Illegal wood in Europe: a review

SUMMARY Illegal logging is a major global problem causing damage to forests, indigenous people and to the economies of the main wood producer countries. Europe as a whole is an important producer and consumer partner and it is likely that the circulation of illegal wood also takes place within EU borders. This Review tries to identify the main EU wood suppliers and discuss the discrepancies in official and non-official statistical data between wood production and consumption, which difficult the accurate validation of the suspicious flows. The importance of Voluntary Partnership Agreements within the EU and main producer countries is emphasized. Finally, and despite the measures to tackle illegal logging, all initiatives must be extensive and uniform throughout the EU and focused in the use of certified timber.

Emerging forest regimes and livelihoods in the Tano Offin Forest Reserve, Ghana: Implications for social safeguards

Greater attention for law enforcement resulting from new forest governance initiatives may make livelihoods of people living in or near protected areas in the tropics more vulnerable due to restricted access and competing claims. This paper aims to provide a deeper insight into the livelihoods of inhabitants of the Tano Offin Globally Significant Biodiversity Area (GSBA) in Ghana's high forest zone and how these are becoming under greater pressure. It assesses the governance implications of the implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) under the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan of the European Union and projects within the framework of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus (REDD+), with a focus on the need for social safeguards. The study shows that the inhabitants of admitted villages in GSBAs already have few legal livelihood options due to restricted access to the forest, which results in competing claims among resource users and with forest managers. Stronger law enforcement resulting from the FLEGT/VPA to combat illegal logging and the Ghana Forestry Commission's consideration to include GSBAs in its REDD+programme is likely to further restrict inhabitants' access to forest resources, with the result being increasing competition for scarce resources. Social safeguards therefore need serious consideration when implementing new forest governance regimes. The authors argue that the politics of protected areas need to reconsider the position of the inhabitants by creating space to build a livelihood, paying them for taking care of nature or relocating them beyond the protected area. This might involve hard choices. What eventually is needed is a change towards interactive governance and adaptive co-management.

Impacts of international timber procurement policies on Central Africa's forestry sector: The case of Cameroon

Public concerns about the environmental credentials of timber products have led to the introduction of procurement policies that add criteria other than price into the decision-making process. This demand-driven initiative alongside the importance of European markets for timber exports have prompted Cameroon to sign a Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT/VPA) with the European Union. This paper reviews the impacts of this policy. Firstly, the institutional arrangement for timber production is presented with special focus on various legal forms of forest exploitation. Secondly, the estimated costs for the required development and control of various types of forest management are presented. Finally the impacts of the FLEGT/VPA on forest governance, forest management, timber trade and socio-economic and development issues is explored. The positive impact of the agreement will be especially felt by industrial forest concession holders that harvest timber products for exports to international markets, but it will hardly be the case of community forests. However, the implementation of the agreement will engender huge financial costs for forest managers and national governments. Also, the livelihoods of small-scale loggers (who are the main suppliers of national markets) may be adversely affected by the procurement policies.

Promising start, bleak outlook: The role of Ghana's modified taungya system as a social safeguard in timber legality processes

The Modified Taungya System (MTS) is a strategy employed by the Ghana Government to restore forest cover, address timber deficits and contribute to rural livelihoods. Under the scheme, farmers combine tree planting and maintenance with the cultivation of food crops until tree canopy closure. This paper aims to generate lessons from the MTS with respect to its role as a social safeguard against the likely adverse impacts of the implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between Ghana and the EU to combat illegal logging, using the six social safeguard dimensions identified by the IoI Project Team (2010). It addresses the question of what the major dimensions of social safeguards are and how the MTS does relate to these characteristics. Based on a survey of 146 MTS farmers and qualitative methods, results revealed that the MTS potentially meets several of the social safeguard mechanisms distinguished by the IoI Project Team (legal security for forest users, soft law enforcement by creating incentives for adaptation, benefit sharing, capacity building, alternative livelihoods/employment and expanding the resource base). The most promising of these is based on the expansion of areas with planted trees that will become available as legal timber in the future. However, the potential safeguards will only materialise if several institutional and management challenges are addressed.

Opinions on legality principles considered in the FLEGT/VPA policy in Ghana and Indonesia

The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade programme (FLEGT) of the European Union aims at stimulating both legal timber production and good forest governance. The EU establishes Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with individual tropical timber exporting countries; these VPAs should be developed through a stakeholder-inclusive governance process and define national standards for timber legality. The national policy level serves as an interface between the EU policy and the local realities of forest exploitation. This article assesses whether new assemblages of timber legality standards were developed at this interface. It presents the opinions of people actively engaged in the FLEGT/VPA process in Ghana (n=38) and Indonesia (n=40) about which principles regarding timber legality, law enforcement and social safeguards were considered during the VPA negotiations in each country. Almost half of the respondents (44%) were positive about the integrative focus of VPA discussions focusing on both forestry and livelihood issues, 40% considered it had mostly a limited focus or traditional timber sector focus, and 16% indicated a high degree of attention to social responsibility issues. There were differences in the characteristics of respondents and their opinions between Ghana and Indonesia; these reflect differences in organisation of the FLEGT/VPA process. The findings demonstrate how depending on country-specific policy processes principles from an international forest policy are adapted at national level; this may involve new assemblages of the original policy principles.

Interaction between the FLEGT-VPA and REDD+ in Ghana: Recommendations for interaction management

Deforestation and forest degradation remain high worldwide, and one of the dominant underlying causes for this forest loss is illegal logging. Numerous international policies have been developed aimed at addressing these issues. This article studies two of these regimes, the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan and its Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with Ghana, and the climate mitigation policy of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). The interactions between these two international policies at the national level, namely in Ghana, are analyzed. The research shows numerous current and anticipated interactions between the two regimes. Most of these interactions potentially have a positive influence, but much depends on the future implementation of both regimes. The article makes recommendations on how to manage the interactions in order to improve the synergies and enhance effectiveness, including institutionalizing information sharing and learning, jurisdictional delimitation, and improving collaboration.

Concept of livelihood in the FLEGT voluntary partnership agreement and the expected impacts on the livelihood of forest communities in Ghana

SUMMARY: Strengthening of forest law enforcement is likely to impact the livelihood of forest communities. The paper discusses the concept of livelihoods in the context of the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) and the expected impacts on the livelihood of forest communities in Ghana. It builds on a literature review and an expert survey. The paper finds that the concept of livelihoods had a prominent position in the VPA negotiation phase. The VPA livelihood impacts will differ for different social groups – the impoverished groups are expected to be more affected in comparison to the wealthier groups. The following issues are identified as the most achievable in shaping the VPA livelihood impacts: improved forest resources and environmental services, reforms of the land and tree tenure system, increased transparency and accountability, and stakeholder consultation and participation in the forest management.

The EU-Ghana VPA: a comprehensive policy analysis of its design

SUMMARY The European Union's FLEGT initiative aims at eliminating illegal timber from its market. An important instrument to achieve this is the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) to install, amongst others, wood tracking systems in timber exporting countries. Ghana was the first to conclude VPA negotiations with the EU. Using the Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA), this paper presents a critical policy analysis of the consensus building and negotiation process and outcome (so far). It shows that the national forest discourse of Ghana has been reshaped by the VPA process, that the traditional forest sector has been opened up, that new forest rules have been designed and that power relations have changed in favour of so-called fringe actors. Theses developments seem in line with the wider shift from government to governance in politics. Yet the question is whether these observable changes will be sustained in the implementation phase of the VPA.

The contents of partnership agreements in Britain 1990-2007

This article assesses the contents of the majority of employer-union partnership agreements signed in Britain from 1990 to 2007. Few agreements contain the expected partnership principles and most express modest overall aims and limited ambition. Typical agreements are substantively hollow with more than one-third containing no substantive provisions; and procedurally biased, with more than four-fifths offering unions greater involvement in employers’ decisions. Partnership agreements continue the procedural bias of traditional British collective agreements representing the lowest common denominator of agreement — unions work towards the success of the enterprise in return for involvement in employers’ decisions. The implications for New Labour’s Third Way approach and the policy of encouraging voluntary partnership agreements to promote fairness at work are considered.

Modeling the impacts of policy measures to prevent import of illegal wood and wood products

The impact of using alternative measures to curb EU imports of illegally harvested wood are compared based on the simulation runs of the EFI-GTM global forest sector model. Four policy options are considered: 1) Baseline Scenario – Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) between the EU and six countries, 2) Option 1 – expanded VPAs increased to include 12 countries covering most of the sources of illegally traded wood, 3) Option 3 - border control actions stopping illegal imports from all non-EU countries entering into the EU, 4) Option 4 - all illegal wood coming both from the EU and non-EU countries is eliminated. The Baseline scenario with six VPA partners has the strongest impacts with respect to reduced harvests, increased wood prices and reduced industrial production in the baseline VPA countries, whereas harvests, production and forest sector value added increases in non-VPA countries with a high or moderate risk for illegal logging and in low risk regions like the EU and USA. However, these positive changes are marginal. Under Option 1 all 12 potential VPA countries are expected to suffer from a lowering of harvests and production. The EU, USA and other low and high/moderate risk countries increase their harvests, production and value added. These positive changes are substantially more significant, since the suggested 12 VPA countries cover most of the trade of illegal wood. Under Option 3 & 4 the impacts are rather marginal, since these options do not foresee elimination of illegal logging for high-risk countries under VPA arrangements. These options mostly affect trade with the EU in the short to medium term.

The Voluntary Partnership Agreement: the Ghanaian and Malaysian experience

This paper looks at how the Voluntary Partnership Agreement is working by using the Ghanaian and Malaysian experiences on this process. The difference in the forest management system in both Ghana and Malaysia, in itself poses some challenges to the implementation of the VPA. Further, the multi-stake holder approach used in Ghana, and the inter-governmental approach used in Malaysia presents different scenarios that may influence the implementation of the VPA. It is important to realize that measures that properly address circumvention and illegal imports from non-partner countries are of crucial importance for Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) to be a success. Therefore, the only way for Ghana and Malaysia to see VPA as a success is to be assisted in every way to build capacity among the law enforcement agencies.

Evolving heritage control and practice: the case of Anglican churches in English parishes

PurposeAs part of its broader re‐evaluation of heritage policy, the UK Government has reviewed the Ecclesiastical Exemption, a long‐standing system that removes certain ecclesiastical buildings from secular heritage controls. This paper aims to critically review The Future of the Ecclesiastical Exemption and subsequent The Ecclesiastical Exemption: The Way Forward.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a detailed overview of the Ecclesiastical Exemption and the Faculty Jurisdiction literature followed by a critical review of recent government proposals.FindingsThe post‐consultation evaluation of responses forced a review of the High Level Management Agreement and the introduction of voluntary Heritage Partnership Agreements. But further reviews of the Ecclesiastical Exemption are likely to be implemented in the future.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the broader appreciation of the “shadow” planning system that the Church of England enjoys.