Verifying timber legality in practice

Through a 6-day training course, Proforest worked with civil society organisations to build their capacity to verify the legality of timber exports from Ghana. This will help them contribute to the EU initiative on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade: Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT/VPA) – a process by which the EU and Ghana aim to assure that timber exports to the EU come from legal sources in Ghana. 

The training will help civil society representatives to engage with the process as independent observers, in collaboration with other monitors or by leading monitoring evaluations. 

Twenty-four trainees from the Ghanaian civil society coalition, Forest Watch Ghana, and members of the Legal Working Group of NGOs active in the FLEGT/VPA process, undertook the training between March and May. Seven trainees went on to carry out a practical assessment of a timber company’s operations against the requirements of Ghana’s Timber Legality Standard. This included assessment of forest administration, field operations and supply chain issues including transport, processing and export requirements.

Proforest provides the FLEGT/VPA Legality Verification in Practice training course through the Africa Practitioners’ Network in selected VPA partner countries, with funding support from UK Aid.