Societé General De Surveillance (SGS) is to monitor timber production in Liberia under a chain of custody contract with Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority (FDA).
FDA managing director John Woods and SGS business development manager for its forest monitoring programme Thomas Pichet signed the agreement last week.
Mr Woods told those at the signing that the contract would have a number of effects on the Liberian timber industry, from allowing logs to be traced back to their roots and allowing the industry to meet international standards, to giving the government a mechanism to claim around 90% of timber industry taxes, of which it currently only collects 14%.
