This report gathers evidence of impacts of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) process of the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan (FLEGT) so far, across a sample of three countries (Cameroon, Ghana, and Indonesia) and four thematic areas (Sustainable forest management and forest conditions; Relation and development of the formal and informal forest sector; Jobs and employment; Law enforcement and compliance). One of the first findings of this study is that there is progress on many VPA-related targets and that for most of these observed changes, VPA contribution is generally positive and rarely negative. Using a similar approach in the three selected countries allows us to get a more global picture and provide a useful tool to assess VPA impact more globally, and it allows lessons to be derived for other VPA countries as well as for the VPA process itself.
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Tag: certification
Towards Improved Forestry Performance: Evaluating the Added Value of the Timber Legality Assurance System in Indonesia
Indonesia is a main tropical timber-producing country and is a leader in implementing Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreements (FLEGT-VPA) with the European Union (EU). In 2015, as a part of the FLEGT-VPA process, the government began a timber legality assurance system called Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK), which is mandatory for all timber product businesses. Since November 2016, Indonesia has issued FLEGT licenses for timber products exported to the EU. This study shows that the SVLK scheme has added value for the public in controlling timber legality, eradicating illegal logging and illegal timber trading, enhancing sustainable forest management and contributing to legal timber trading. The scheme also has added value in providing legal certainty for businesses. However, it contributes less to product marketing and its use as a standard to assess sustainable forest management needs to be evaluated.
Impact of a Media Campaign on Consumers’ Purchasing Intentions of Legal Timber in Cameroon
Illegal logging is a key driver of deforestation in tropical countries and benefits a large number of stakeholders, including urban domestic buyers. Changing the latter’s purchasing behavior could produce significant shifts in the illegal trade market. Based on survey data (n= 463), this paper assesses the impact of a media campaign on consumers’ purchase intentions for legal timber and wooden furniture in Yaoundé and analyses the underlying psychological mechanisms. Combining covariate matching and mediation analysis, we found a significant positive effect of the media campaign on the declared intention to purchase legally-sourced timber and the mediation effect of two out of three precursors of the theory of planned behaviors, namely attitude and subjective norms. This study provides critical inputs to frame future media campaign messages and, by demonstrating some consumers’ interest in legal timber, to strengthen the domestic legitimacy of policies such as the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade.
Voluntary Partnership Agreements: Assessing impacts for better policy decisions
The European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan is an ambitious strategy to fight illegal logging and its negative impacts. The FLEGT theory of change is based on three types of FLEGT actions, namely timber production, demand, and global timber trade standards and dynamics. FLEGT works in more than a dozen countries through Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA). Very few studies exist on the global or country-level impact of the FLEGT-VPA process. We sought to understand the contribution of FLEGT-VPAs in three countries (Cameroon, Ghana, and Indonesia) at different stages of VPA implementation. A uniform methodology was applied to provide cross-cutting results on perceived changes directly linked to the FLEGT expected impacts while allowing for contextual specificities. This approach is designed to be easily replicable in all VPA countries and directly linked to the FLEGT global theory of change. This commentary presents our findings and their implications for policy makers.