Developing best wood tracking practices to verify legality of wood origin in Latvia: WBCSD and WWF pilot project

Developing best wood tracking practices to verify legality of wood origin in Latvia: WBCSD and WWF pilot

project

Violations of Latvia’s forestry act are not the main problem facing the local logging

industry, but rather other illegalities related to national and international laws. The

WBCSD and the WWF, under a collaborative framework agreement, have come

together in a joint pilot project to define a wood tracking system for Latvia.

Executive Summary

Background

Recent institutional and legal reforms, greening legislation, capacity development and the rapid development of forest

certification characterize forest sector trends in the Baltic States. At the same time, problems related to weak law

enforcement, the weak organization of private forest owners, insufficient corporate responsibility and money laundering in

the timber trade remain.

Under its

Collaborative Framework Agreement ( 947 kb), the WBCSD and WWF undertook a joint pilot project on

wood tracking practices in Latvia. The project in Latvia was also launched to support

The Forests Dialogue (TFD)

process on illegal logging, which is seeking to raise stakeholder awareness of the problems at an international level,

discuss proven and practical solutions and promote their wider adoption.

While the pilot project has allowed project partners to develop a better understanding of the scope and magnitude of the

problem in Latvia, the project’s conclusion – outlined below – can also benefit other actors in Latvia, as well as other

industries and countries.

Conclusion and recommendation

The WBCSD & WWF pilot project in Latvia proposes that all companies in Latvia implement and use an effective system

to track wood origin by identifying where and how the wood was harvested. The wood tracking system includes three

main parts:

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