Expert Panel on Illegal Timber Trade 2016

Report

Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade – Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses
A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report

This report presents the results of the fifth global scientific assessment undertaken by the GFEP programme. The report set out to gain deeper understanding of the meaning of illegal logging and related timber trade, its scale, drivers and consequences. It provides a structured synthesis of available scientific and expert knowledge on illegal logging and associated timber trade while adding to existing studies and reports by sharing new insights, including a criminology perspective and new information about timber and timber product trade, drug trade, flows as well as exploring future policy options and governance responses.

This assessment report and the accompanying policy brief provide an authoritative source of information for policymakers and stakeholders involved in the fight against illegal logging and associated timber trade, in order to support effective action in tackling this pressing global problem.  The assessment followed a slightly different format compared to the other full-scale scientific assessments and was carried out as a rapid response assessment.

Full Report

Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade - Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses

Editors: Daniela Kleinschmit, Stephanie Mansourian, Christoph Wildburger, Andre Purret

For hard copies of the global assessment report, please write to office(at)iufro.org.

Chapter 8 - Conclusions in different languages (language; translator)

 

Policy Brief

Forests Beyond the Law: Scientific Insights into Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade


This policy brief summarizes the key messages of the GFEP report “Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade - Dimensions, Drivers, Impacts and Responses. A Global Scientific Rapid Response Assessment Report” and reaches out to international as well as national policymakers and other stakeholders.

Following key messages are highlighted:

  • Recognizing the complexity and multiple dimensions of illegal logging and related timber trade is a precondition to designing focused governance responses.
  • Despite increasing international governance efforts, illegal forest activities remain pervasive
  • Drivers of illegal logging, such as contested and conflicting land tenure, and road construction largely overlap with drivers of forest degradation and deforestation.
  • Illegal logging produces impacts that can be direct, indirect and cumulative with environmental as well as social, economic and political implications.
  • The majority of timber resulting from illegal forest activities is traded domestically.
  • Enforcing policies that aim to combat illegal logging and related timber trade may itself be problematic.
  • Cross-sectoral and integrated policies are needed to ensure effective governance responses since illegal forest activities are not merely a problem of the forest sector.
  • Organized criminal networks are increasingly involved in illegal logging.
  • The lack of reliable and comparable data hampers efforts to tackle effectively illegal logging and related timber trade.
     

Policy Brief

Forests Beyond the Law: Scientific Insights into Illegal Logging and Related Timber Trade