How the EU can protect the world’s forest by tackling corruption

But as with any pledge, the proof is in the pudding.

Less than a year on the EU faces a key opportunity to tackle corruption in the logging industry, where it is most rampant, yet little-known and poorly understood, in some of the world’s most fragile and climate-critical ecosystems, rainforests.

The EU is uniquely placed as one of the main consumer markets for tropical timber and has a key responsibility to promote and pursue fundamental reforms to tackle corruption in source countries.

As the European Commission prepares its follow-up to the review of the EU’s international forest policies corruption should be top of their agenda, as it risks undermining progress on all other fronts.

The natural resource sector is notoriously corrupt – the world’s most corrupt industry according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.

Across continents developing countries’ natural wealth is siphoned off by corrupt politicians and the companies they do business with, robbing national treasuries of public funds that could lift countless out of poverty.

With forests it isn’t only the host countries who lose out – it’s all of us.

Weed out corruption to save rainforests

High levels of corruption in forest-rich countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo mean rainforests are being cut down far beyond legal limits, destroying one of our best defences in the fight against climate change at a time when carbon emissions are higher than ever.

This devastates biodiversity and on the lives of communities living in and around the forests.

Corruption taints the logging industry at such scale that a fresh approach that goes beyond technical elements is needed.

Across continents, logging companies bribe officials for access to forest that should by law be protected.

Police at forest checkpoints are paid to look the other way when timber trucks come and go far more frequently than they should.

Documents are tampered with at ports, suggesting timber is legal when it isn’t.

Much of this timber ends up in the EU despite the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) banning import of illegal wood.

But as one of the only consumer blocs with such laws the EU has the potential to play a key role in tackling the problem.

Member States, with support from the commission, must improve compliance and step up their enforcement.

Crucially, this should include measures that are specifically designed to guard timber supply chains against corruption.

Plant the seeds for future forests

While the EUTR is aimed at choking demand for illegal timber, the FLEGT (Forest, Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) Action Plan represents the EU’s efforts to tackle the problem at source, including through bilateral agreements with timber-producing countries.

This plan does include elements that can help tackle corruption, but should be reoriented and strengthened to tackle the scale of the corruption challenge.

Independent forest monitors should be an essential part of all EU interventions on the forest sector.

This might include logging permits being reviewed and cancelled when they are allocated corruptly.

Law enforcement efforts should be strengthened and measures to tackle conflicts of interest and common minimum standards for accessing information on logging concessions put in place.

To ensure that they’re robust the EU’s efforts to improve the governance of tropical forests should be firmly embedded in broader anti-corruption strategies promoted through the EU’s development and foreign policy.

This should guarantee basic freedoms, such as freedom of expression and freedom of information and strengthen the rule of law in producer countries.

This should take place in close cooperation with other donors, in partnership with national governments, and be driven from the highest political level.

Without strengthening anti-corruption checks and balances along timber supply chains Europe will miss a major opportunity to contribute to global efforts to halt climate change at this crucial time.

That’s why Transparency International EU and Global Witness have teamed up to call on the commission to integrate anti-corruption principles in FLEGT in their latest report: Tackling corruption to protect the world’s forests. How the EU can rise to the challenge.

Jo Blackman is senior EU and international campaigner at Global Witness; Elena Gaita is policy officer-corporate transparency at Transparency International EU.