The European Union and the Government of Indonesia today announced a new agreement aimed at stemming the flow of illegally harvested timber, which until recently had represented approximately 50% of timber exported from Indonesia and 20% of timber products imported into the EU, according to various estimates. The “Voluntary Partnership Agreement” with Indonesia, the world’s third-largest tropical forest nation, is the most ambitious yet of the EU’s bi-lateral pacts aimed at slowing the destruction of tropical forests. EFI’s EU FLEGT Facility provided technical support to the preparation, negotiation and implementation of FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Indonesia.
In less than 50 years, Indonesia has gone from being 82% forest to only 49% today, a trend that has led to social problems, environmental degradation and a loss of economic opportunities on a massive scale, according to studies of the impact of deforestation on the nation of 245 million people. In 2007, a UN report estimated that 73 to 88 percent of timber logged in Indonesia was illegally sourced. Between 1990 and 2005, Indonesia lost 28 million hectares of forest, almost enough to cover the landmass of the Philippines.
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