Vietnam’s timber legality program not making a dent in risky wood imports

Mongabay – by Carolyn Cowan on 2 February 2022

• Despite new regulations to clean up Vietnam’s timber sector, importers continue to bring large volumes of tropical hardwood into the country from deforestation hotspots in Africa and Asia for use in products sold domestically.
• In 2018, Vietnam signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the EU to eliminate illegal timber from the country’s supply chains and boost access to the strictly regulated European markets.
• However, importers say the new legality requirements introduced in 2020 to verify the legitimacy of timber brought into the country are “too confusing,” and customs data indicate few signs of a reduction in high-risk timber imports from countries including Cambodia, Cameroon, Gabon, Laos and Papua New Guinea.
• Although Vietnamese authorities are taking steps to improve the situation, meaningful change is expected to take time; a switch by domestic consumers to products that use sustainable, locally grown timber instead of imported tropical hardwoods could solve many underlying problems, experts say.

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