PRESS RELEASE
At the margins of the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Conference on "Forests, forest governance and timber products trade: Scenarios and challenges for Europe and Asia", taking place at the Hotel Raffles Le Royal on 4-5 May 2010, in Phnom Penh, the EU is launching a new programme for Forest Governance in Asia, the FLEGT Asia Programme.
FLEGT stands for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade. The European Union (EU) is implementing a FLEGT Action Plan to combat illegal logging and the trade in illegal timber. Illegal logging and its related trade leads to loss of revenues and income, environmental damage, loss of biodiversity and development opportunities and can contribute to climate change.
To help promoting and supporting the FLEGT Action plan, the EU has decided to fund a FLEGT Asia programme. One of the foreseen activities is to facilitate bilateral negotiations on trade agreements with interested timber producing countries in the region. FLEGT Asia will focus this work in the Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam) and China. Negotiations with Malaysia and Indonesia on such trade agreements have made progress for the last three years.
FLEGT Asia will focus on informing about emerging EU market trends and requirements. FLEGT Asia will support promotion of good forest governance and trade in legal timber.
