U.S. says Peru’s timber verification shows progress

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Peru has made progress on ensuring only legally harvested timber is exported, but there’s still room for enhancing protections.    The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Peru has made progress on ensuring only legally harvested timber is exported, but there’s still room for enhancing protections.
   USTR based its observations on the recent review of the Peruvian government’s verification report regarding a 2015 timber shipment from the South American country to the United States. This first-ever verification was conducted pursuant to a February 2016 request made by the U.S. Timber Committee under the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA).
   U.S. Trade Representative Michael Forman said he has urged Peru’s new government to “engage quickly with the United States on a focused set of actions to combat illegal logging, including maximizing the use of new technologies to address the challenges – including, for example, full and immediate deployment of the electronic timber tracking system we have been working together to develop.”
   So far, Peru’s Organismo de Supervisión de los Recursos Forestales y de Fauna Silvestre (OSINFOR) has performed more than 4,000 inspections of 1.7 million hectares from 2009 to June 2016, resulting in numerous actions to improve forest management, an amendment of Peru’s criminal code in 2008 to include substantial penalties for illegal logging and wildlife trafficking, adoption in 2010 of laws and other measures to comply with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the enactment of a new Forestry and Wildlife Law in 2011, and the implementation of regulations in 2015 that improve forest sector governance.
   The United States has supported Peru’s efforts to improve its forest sector oversight by providing nearly $90 million in technical assistance and capacity building since the PTPA entered into force, including development of an electronic timber tracking system that will allow Peruvian authorities “to trace every log from stump to port in order to better detect and address illegal logging,” USTR said.