home | contact | search | Europe and North Asia Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (ENA-FLEG)   Welcome to the TRN ENA-FLEG webpage. This page is devoted to issues relating to the ENA-FLEG process, one of a series of regional focused attempts to improve forest law, enforcement and governance. We hope you find the page useful. If you have suggestions for further information to be uploaded please contact feja @ brenweb.org. News Update on the ENA-FLEG July 18, 2006 The following news update on timber procurement in the Russian-Japanese market comes from a letter sent to Chatham House, London (where bi-annual meetings on illegal logging take place) by Anatoly Lebedev of BROC in the Russian Far East. Current Overview of Russian-Japanese Timber Market Measures to Combar Illegal Logging and Timber Trade (First half of 2006) In April 1, 2006, the Japanese timber industry began to live by the new Guidelines for Verification on Legality and Sustainability of Wood and Wood Products, adopted by the Forestry Agency of Japan on February 15, 2006. View text. As it turns out, the Japanese government does not have any strategy on the Russian illegal logging issue. Their timber purchasing guideline does not require any specific certificates. It just states that any independent certificate can be a proof of legality. It also allows any voluntary legality proof if a timber association establishes a system in which the association checks their members' voluntary management system of separating legality-proved wood. Nonetheless, as is pointed out in the section 5 of Guidelines..., it should be assessed and reviewed by the multi-stakeholder meeting, including environmental NGOs. Following this model, Russian Far East Association of timber exporters (“Dalexportles”) and the Japanese Timber Importers’ Association signed a memorandum on April 11 in Khabarovsk. The document stated that, before all the member companies of “Dalexportles” complete the FSC certification procedure, which usually takes 1-2 years, parties of the memorandum, with support of SGS Certifying Company Center in Khabarovsk, will produce “internal certificates”.This document does not pretend to be of official FSC authority, but, by the Japanese governmental guidelines, it satisfies both parties and thus help them solve the problem of legality validation. The whole work is being conducted by the Validation of Legal Timber Programme (VLTP) – Russia, which is a special part of SGS activities. By the end of July, 2006, Dalexportles is planning to conduct a meeting of all its member companies to evaluate the level of completeness of their “internal” validation procedure and prepare SGS labeled internal certificates for the key exporters to Japan. This validation work is taking place in collaboration with Forest Certification Center (FCC) in Khabarovsk. Simultaneously, by the initiative of Japanese Forestry Agency, Friends of the Earth Japan (FOE-J) is preparing to launch a parallel NGO project in August 2006 to provide independent assessment and research of any validating documents delivered to Russian timber suppliers in Japan. This work will be conducted by BROC on the Russian Far East and by Friends of Siberian Forests (FSF) in Siberia. All three NGOs participating in this project are open for replication of any positive experience and mutual training with similar initiatives from other regions. June 13, 2006 - A Round Table was held in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) to discuss the Tien-Shen forest problems.There were about 30 participants from NGOs, academic institutions, and the forest department (formerly part of Ecology Ministry). Read more. May 16 – 18, 2006 Antalya, Turkey - Workshop on the Implementation of the Europe and North Asia Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (ENA-FLEG) Ministerial Declaration. The proceedings. This recent workshop intended to ‘provide a platform for stakeholders to share past experiences with combating illegal activities in the forest sector and provide practical guidance on formulating action plans based on the St. Petersburg Ministerial Declaration and Indicative List of Actions'. Participants included representatives from government, civil society, international organizations and the private sector. The workshop failed to provide an open forum for sharing expertise and experiences amongst all stakeholders. Instead it was used as an opportunity to test-drive the World Bank/Indufor ‘Draft Guidelines for Formulating and Implementing National Action Plans to Combat Illegal Logging and Other Forest Crimes.’   Although the meeting did provide civil society representatives with another chance to develop further links between themselves and other in country stakeholders, on the whole it was felt to be a missed opportunity. In the final plenary, civil society presented its vision of an effective multi-stakeholder dialogue. If the recommendations are incorporated into the ENA-FLEG process, things may improve. ENA-FLEG Ministerial The ENA-FLEG Ministerial took place in St Petersburg on 22-25 November 2005. The final ENA-FLEG declaration and indicative list of actions is available here. NGOs had agreed on a joint position paper on the ENA-FLEG based upon the ISC draft Elements of the Declaration and Indicative Action Plan #4, 21 October 2005.The position paper was the foundation for lobbying priorities at the Ministerial in St Petersburg. In St Petersburg 2-3 November 2005 a TFD meeting between NGOs and industry took place. The meeting, in the words of the organisers aimed to reach ‘a shared understanding of some of the underlying issues related to forest law enforcement and governance, illegal logging, associated trade and corruption in the Europe / North Asia region; [and] develop a joint statement (priority issues and recommendations) to inform and influence inter-governmental negotiators at the ENA FLEG Ministerial Conference scheduled for 22-25 November in St. Petersburg; identify post-Ministerial initiatives.’ The meeting resulted in a summary rather than a joint statement. Click for English version of and Russian version of the TFD document. The summary proved a helpful document for lobbying jointly by NGO's and industry at the Ministerial itself. Furthermore, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development released a press statement on the meeting. Also see the IISD ENA FLEG update webpage. Background Press Packs for download. Click here! The ENA-FLEG process - a history The FLEG (forest law enforcement and governance) process started in 1998 and has resulted in several regional Ministerial meetings including East Asia and Africa. Click here for an overview of the ENA-FLEG process. The ENA-FLEG Ministerial meeting held in St. Petersburg 22-25 November 2005 was the first directly boreal related FLEG. The second TRN and FERN ENA-FLEG briefing paper titled "Europe and North Asia FLEG: the next steps for civil society" outlines the importance of this Ministerial and the necessary steps that need to be undertaken to ensure effective involvement in the process by environmental and social NGOs in it and the longer term implementation of any Declaration and Indicative Action Plan resulting from the meeting. Here is a Chinese version and a Russian version of the "Europe and North Asia FLEG: the next steps for civil society" Briefing Paper. Environmental and social NGOs actively participated in the ENA-FLEG preparatory process. In February 2005 in Moscow Russian NGOs attended the International Steering Committee (ISC) meeting. At this time the Russian NGOs also prepared a country specific position paper. In New York in May at the UNFF selected NGO representatives were invited to make a brief presentation to the ISC, and in Moscow in June civil society representatives from all the ENA-FLEG regions attended the Preparatory Conference to input into the drafting of elemental building blocks for the Declaration and Indicative Action Plan of the Ministerial. Details of these meetings are available from several websites including the World Bank ENA-FLEG website (Russian text is available from the Russian World Bank Group ENA-FLEG website) At the preparatory conference civil society, including industry agreed on a joint statement. This will be developed at a meeting of industry and environmental and social NGOs in St Petersburg 2-3 November convened with assistance from The Forest Dialogue and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. IUCN have also produced a collection of materials that includes details from regional workshops with civil society representatives in the Russian Federation. This is available here. The Russian civil society website has country specific materials. Take Action 1) Contact your in country ENA-FLEG government focal point and ask how civil society is being included in the National Action Plan development process. If it is not contact the list serve so we can apply international pressure. 2) Join the TRN ENA-FLEG list serve to share information and keep updated on ENA-FLEG issues. Contact info @ taigarescue.org Useful links IISD ENA FLEG update webpage World Bank ENA FLEG webpage Illegal Logging website Russian civil society website Global Forest Watch and Greenpeace website FERN website     top