The world’s forests, and the rights of many who depend on them, remained under assault in 2019.
These attacks came from many directions: from the erosion of environmental and human rights protections in Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro, to the Amazon fires; from the EU’s devastating bioenergy policy, to its raft of Free Trade Agreements with forested countries to increase our insatiable consumption of products that drive deforestation; from a lack of secure tenure rights for people depending on forests for their survival, to failures of transparency and accountability in the forest sector…
23/06/2020
This January 2020 Fern and LoggingOff's update on FLEGT VPAs shows the support the process is still receiving from civil society, governments and the private sector. It is written by Civil Society leaders across Africa, Asia and Latin America and shows their enthusiasm for the process despite the multiple challenges.
20/01/2020
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VPA update, June 2019
One of the unique features of Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) – which form a key part of the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan – is that they allow a variety of actors (government, private sector, civil society and forest communities) to discuss how forests should be managed.
10/07/2019
This briefing outlines Civil Society’s involvement in the EU-Laos Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA). It explains how their engagement is influencing the content, improving...
17/06/2019
Illegal logging and the illicit timber trade thrive when legal frameworks, rights and benefits are unclear and complex to enforce. Transparency is therefore at the heart of Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) and over the last...
04/12/2018
One year ago, forests and their crucial ecological and economic role were again at the forefront of the EU’s policy agenda. In June 2017, at the EU conference on illegal logging and deforestation, EU Commissioner for International...
10/06/2018
LoggingOff and Fern publish occasional Forest Watch updates detailing events in countries negotiating a Voluntary Partnership Agreement from a civil society perspective. In the November 2017 edition, the main article focuses on...
15/11/2017
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