Actions may speak louder than words, but in the political arena you need both. Here actions are all well and good, but you have to thump the tub about the fact that you’re taking them, otherwise they slip through unnoticed and you don’t get the credit.
Which is why the Timber Trade Action Plan (TTAP), launched this week in Brussels, is such an encouraging development. The initiative is the joint endeavour of the trade associations representing Europe’s leading hardwood importing nations, the UK Timber Trade Federation and its counterparts in the Netherlands and Belgium. Other partners include the Tropical Forest Trust and Malaysian Timber Council.
The aim of the TTAP is to boost the supply to the European market of “verifiably legal hardwood timber”, and to keep the industry in line with the EU‘s anti-illegal timber programme, the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Action Plan. The initiative will involve close collaboration with timber suppliers (initially in Africa and Asia) and aims to improve chain of custody tracking. Obviously this will cost traders money, but the EU is match-funding the initiative. And the payback for the industry will hopefully be improved trust and credibility in the market and improved availability of certified legal timber. An American exporter said the other week that, after much effort, he was finally achieving a premium on certified stock, so maybe the TTAP will eventually be good for margins too.
The other good news is that the TTAP isn’t being introduced discreetly. The launch in Brussels was attended by big names in the European hardwood industry and also the politicians, including Jeremy Wall of the European Commission’s Forest-Based Industries Section.
And the plan was given the big build up. Among the claims for its potential impact were that it would “enhance the integrity of the global timber industry, while complementing international efforts to tackle poverty and corruption”. That’s a pretty strong message for the industry to broadcast.
