EU-Cameroon agreement against illegal timber trade

The European Union (EU) and Cameroon signed, on 6 October, a forest law enforcement governance and trade voluntary partnership agreement under the FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade) programme. It means that starting in July 2012, all wood products entering the EU from Cameroon must be certified to contain only legally harvested timber and timber products. This agreement, underlines the European Commission, expresses a strong joint commitment to eradicate illegal logging and underpins Cameroon’s ongoing reforms towards good governance of the forest sector and development. European consumers, for their part, will have confidence that wood products, such as furniture, imported from Cameroon are of legal origin.Negotiations of the agreement between Cameroon and the EU started in 2007 and have been based on active engagement of civil society and private sector representatives. A national wood traceability system is already under development.Cameroon is one of the main timber exporting countries of the Congo Basin, which constitutes the world’s second largest tropical forest. Eighty per cent of Cameroon's timber is exported to the EU. Africa’s biggest exporter of tropical hardwood to Europe intends to set up a national system to ensure legal compliance in timber production, covering all timber and wood products being sold to the EU, but also on the domestic market and to non-EU markets. At the same time, the EU will guarantee unrestricted access to its entire market for all timber products coming from Cameroon that have been verified legal. Cameroon is the third in a series of bilateral accords that are negotiated between the EU and timber producing countries (agreements were signed with the Republic of Congo earlier this year and with Ghana in 2009).