Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-23-Speech-2-434"
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"en.20080923.40.2-434"2
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".
Nobody can any longer be in doubt that the clearance and destruction of forests has an impact on climate change and biodiversity. To be precise, deforestation now affects 13 million hectares worldwide and is the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Illegal wood production causes erosion, undermines the subsistence of local communities and constitutes a loss of EUR 10–15 billion a year for wood-producing countries.
I naturally welcome the creation of an international agreement on tropical timber, but even with this we are still nowhere near the target. We will get there if we manage to adopt a more comprehensive approach to forests in temperate zones, at least within the European Union; an approach that ensures both that wood products are manufactured in an honest way and also the traceability of the entire selling chain. Only such an agreement could make a real contribution to protecting forests and to the sustainable use of timber.
Of course, I am under no illusions, especially since the statement that several of my colleagues and I wrote during spring and summer this year has been signed by a quarter of all MEPs.
I trust that, sooner or later, the issue of tropical forests might turn attention to us, to Europe. Maybe, thanks to an agreement on tropical forests, the Commission will come forward with legislation stipulating that only wood and wood products that have been produced legally may be imported into the European Union."@en1
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