Publication - April 30, 2010
Europe is the world’s largest market for timber products and the EU recognised in 2003 that it needed to take effective action against deforestation and illegal logging. Seven years later, a law to regulate the market and exclude illegal timber is finally nearing adoption.
Executive summary: On 4 May, the European Parliament’s environment committee will take a second reading vote on draft legislation on timber. The outcome of the vote is uncertain. The Parliament, the Commission and the Council will then start negotiations to agree on a final law in time for a plenary vote in the Parliament in early July. If the EU fails to regulate timber markets, the forest footprint of Europeans will keep growing, eating up the rainforests that need to be protected to save animal and plant species from extinction and reduce the contribution of deforestation to greenhouse gas emissions (about 20% of global emissions).
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