Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission, or from a protected area; the cutting down of protected species; or the extraction of timber in excess of agreed limits.
The European Union has a number of relationships with nations that are not formally part of the Union. According to the European Union's official site, and a statement by Commissioner Günter Verheugen, the aim is to have a ring of countries, sharing EU's democratic ideals and joining them in further integration without necessarily becoming full member states.
Forestry laws govern activities in designated forest lands, most commonly with respect to forest management and timber harvesting. Ancillary laws may regulate forest land acquisition and prescribed burn practices. Forest management laws generally adopt management policies, such as multiple use and sustained yield, by which public forest resources are to be managed. Governmental agencies are generally responsible for planning and implementing forestry laws on public forest lands, and may be involved in forest inventory, planning, and conservation, and oversight of timber sales. Broader initiatives may seek to slow or reverse deforestation.
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is a foreign relations instrument of the European Union (EU) which seeks to tie those countries to the east and south of the European territory of the EU to the Union. These countries, primarily developing countries, include some who seek to one day become either a member state of the European Union, or more closely integrated with the European Union. The ENP does not apply to neighbours of the EU's outermost regions, specifically France's territories in South America, but only to those countries close to EU member states' territories in mainland Europe.
Environmental crime is an illegal act which directly harms the environment. These illegal activities involve the environment, wildlife, biodiversity and natural resources. International bodies such as, G8, Interpol, European Union, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, have recognised the following environmental crimes:
The inaugural session of the Black Sea Forum for Partnership and Dialogue (BSF) was held on June 4–6, 2006 in Bucharest. The Forum is a Romanian initiative, initially meant to hold annual presidential-level summits and thematic or sectoral-cooperation meeting during those annual intervals. The Forum is not meant to create new regional institutions, but rather to turn into a regular consultative process among countries of the extended Black Sea region and between this group of countries and international organizations such as the European Union. After the inaugural summit, no other summits were planned.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries.
The Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development is one of the departments of the European Commission. It operates under the authority of the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen.
TRAFFIC, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network, is the leading non-governmental organisation working globally on the trade of wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity and sustainable development. It was founded in 1976 as a strategic alliance of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Fern is a Dutch foundation created in 1995. It is an international Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) set up to keep track of the European Union's involvement in forests and coordinate NGO activities at the European level. Fern works to protect forests and the rights of people who depend on them.
The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint initiative of the European External Action Service of the European Union (EU) together with EU, its Member States, and six Eastern European Partners governing its relationship with the post-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The EaP is intended to provide an avenue for discussions of trade, economic strategy, travel agreements, and other issues between the EU and its Eastern European neighbours. It also aims at building a common area of shared democracy, prosperity, stability, and increased cooperation. The project was initiated by Poland and a subsequent proposal was prepared in co-operation with Sweden. It was presented by the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden at the EU's General Affairs and External Relations Council in Brussels on 26 May 2008. The Eastern Partnership was inaugurated by the European Union in Prague, Czech Republic on 7 May 2009.
INOGATE was an international energy co-operation programme between the European Union (EU), the littoral states of the Black and Caspian seas and their neighbouring countries. The programme was operational from 1996 to 2016.
The Union for the Mediterranean is an intergovernmental organization of 42 member states from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 27 EU member states and 15 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, Western Asia and Southern Europe. It was founded on 13 July 2008 at the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, with an aim of reinforcing the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euromed) that was set up in 1995 as the Barcelona Process. Its general secretariat is located in Barcelona, Spain.
Illegal logging has been a problem in Madagascar for decades and is perpetuated by extreme poverty and government corruption. Often taking the form of selective logging, the trade has been driven by high international demand for expensive, fine-grained lumber such as rosewood and ebony. Historically, logging and exporting in Madagascar have been regulated by the Malagasy government, although the logging of rare hardwoods was explicitly banned from protected areas in 2000. Since then, government orders and memos have intermittently alternated between permitting and banning exports of precious woods. The most commonly cited reason for permitting exports is to salvage valuable wood from cyclone damage, although this reasoning has come under heavy scrutiny. This oscillating availability of Malagasy rosewood and other precious woods has created a market of rising and falling prices, allowing traders or "timber barons" to stockpile illegally sourced logs during periodic bans and then flood the market when the trade windows open and prices are high. Over 350,000 trees were illegally felled in Madagascar between 2010 and 2015, according to TRAFFIC.
The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is an umbrella term for the group of policies aimed at converging the economies of member states of the European Union at three stages. The policies cover the 19 eurozone states, as well as non-euro European Union states.
The Saint Petersburg Declaration may refer to:
Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a significant transnational issue. In the DRC, forests are cleared for agricultural purposes by utilizing slash and burn techniques.
Resource Extraction Monitoring (REM) is a non-profit organisation that provides independent monitoring to ensure that laws relating to the extraction of natural resources are enforced. It was founded in 2003 by experts with over 15 years of monitoring experience. The head office is in the UK, with local offices in countries where major projects are taking place.
The European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) came into force in 2014. It is the financial arm of the European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU’s foreign policy towards its neighbours to the East and to the South. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes.
The European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan is a European Union initiative to address illegal logging and the social, economic and environmental harm it causes. The EU adopted the Action Plan in 2003. The plan includes activities in the EU and in tropical countries that export timber and timber products to the EU. These measures include a regulation that prohibits EU businesses from importing or trading illegal timber, and bilateral trade agreements with timber-exporting countries. Much of the FLEGT Action Plan focuses on promoting trade in legal timber products and creating disincentives for trade in illegal products. However, the Action Plan's measures go further by addressing aspects of poor governance that enable illegal logging to persist.
