Harvested timber

The FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) licensing scheme is a voluntary scheme to ensure that only legally harvested timber is imported into the UK from countries with which the UK concludes bilateral FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs). Under the scheme a partner country issues FLEGT licences for every shipment of timber products covered by the agreement exported to the UK. The release for free circulation in the UK of such shipments is conditional on the acceptance by the UK competent authority of the FLEGT licence. The competent authority may verify the authenticity of the FLEGT licence and its conformity with the shipment that it covers.

Timber products (defined in the Agreements by HS codes) exported from FLEGT partner countries to the UK are covered by a FLEGT licence issued by the licensing authority of that country. The FLEGT licence demonstrates that the timber products have complied with relevant legislation as set out in the corresponding bilateral FLEGT VPAs. Once operational, the implementation of the licensing scheme requires that imports of relevant timber products into the UK be made subject to a system of checks and controls so that only FLEGT licensed timber will be imported to the UK.
Please see Products "Harvested Timber"

The FLEGT licensing system has been put in place so that countries exporting to the UK can demonstrate that their exports of timber products to the UK are from legal sources. The scheme does not impose any restrictions neither in terms of quantity nor in terms of volumes to the imported goods. While the CITES Convention regulates trade in endangered species, including certain timber species, it does not cover the bulk of the timber trade. In the light of public concerns about imports of illegally harvested timber and the negative impact on perceptions of the timber sector, a bilateral approach to address the issue together with interested countries, accompanied by capacity building measures, was considered an appropriate measure to protect the environment from illegal logging. An alternative approach could have been to rely on voluntary certification schemes; however, this would not provide the economies of scale or impact of a national approach and may not have adequately taken into account the role of producer governments in ensuring compliance with their relevant legislation.

The products concerned are not under restriction as to the quantity or value of imports. Replies from I to XI are therefore not pertinent.

FLEGT licensing scheme will be operational between the UK and Indonesia.

Ongoing