Understanding Illegal Logging in Forest Sector for Sustainable Development

1. Illegal logging in the context of the sound use of wood Mrs Laura Bouriaud Mr Anssi Niskanen

2. Illegal logging in forest sector What is illegal logging: • Harvest without the owner’s agreement (robbery)  infringement of criminal law • Harvest without respecting the constraints imposed by law (unauthorized harvests) infringement of administrative law Illegal logging in forest wood chain

3. Official records in selected countries

4. Illegal logging violates SFM • Threat on forest protection, biodiversity conservation, multiple use of forests • Sustainable forest yield criteria: Illegal and legal harvests appear lower than the AAC, but: • Question of scale • Location of illegal cuttings • Additional risk factors • Uncontrolled cuttings may lead to definitive change of land use

5. Illegal logging leads to inefficient use of timber • Illegal logging increases forest management costs • Market failure: • Unfair competition with wood legaly cut • « Externalities » : indirect costs even for those agents not affected by timber robbery  A social cost, distributional and inter- generational impacts

6. Conclusion • Illegal logging significance • Depends on political and social distributional goals • At local level, severe ecological consequences • Data reliability • Implementation gap / failure of forest and related policies aiming to support sustainable development

7. Required investigations • How the different actors in forest wood chain could influence on illegal logging? • Would forest certification provide tools to help decrease illegal logging? • How much wood is illegally cut? • Pictures are underestimated • Picture are ± relevant • Picture are ± reliable

8. Promote thinking and actions: • to have more reliable information in the future • to have better understanding of illegal logging determinism