• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

SALT.

Search Toggle
  • What is Salt?
  • Principles
  • Seascape Map
  • Story Hub
  • Supply Chain
  • Dive Deeper
  • Search Toggle

Tying Forests to Fish

Dense forest with light shining through

Why would SALT attend a meeting about forest legality?  To learn. What can our community learn from work to stop the illegal timber trade?  A lot, as it turns out.

The third annual World Resources Institute (WRI) Forest Legality Week was hosted in Washington, DC from October 8-10.  The WRI Forest Legality Initiative was a founding inspiration for SALT. Originally developed by USAID with other U.S. government partners, the Forest Legality Alliance has now transitioned and carries on important work in illegal logging.  

The overwhelming commonality between the two fields is that traceability is a key solution to address illegal behaviors.  Some observations and takeaways:

Similarities
  • Multiple initiatives are working to tackle the issue. We’re not alone in having many alliances, collaborations, projects, etc. – Tropical Forest Alliance, Global Forest Watch, Forest Legality Initiative, Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) (which took on timber in addition to oil and gas after lobbying) and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) to name a few.  I’m sure all of this work is unique, but seafood struggles with a complicated and busy landscape as well.
  • Companies secure local businesses in a country to operate but are usually owned by larger foreign companies
  • Transparency is essential for enforcing existing regulations and to stop illegality.
  • The Open Timber Portal is an online resource that synthesizes reports and highlights key findings and curates relevant information. The platform aims to improve access to comprehensive country-specific information about forest management and harvesting, and increase the effectiveness of regulations on illegal logging, such as the U.S. Lacey Act and the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). 
  • Technology interoperability is an issue in forest traceability as well.
  • Voluntary certification schemes are plentiful.
  • Producer country and consumer country needs are vastly different.
Differences
  • There appears to be more transparent data in forestry.  Many presentations reported being able to identify fraud because of incongruencies in public reporting from exports, price, sales, and revenue.
  • Enforcement opportunities are many – Environmental Investigation Agency, CITES, Interpol, national governments, U.S. Dept of Justice, etc. – with illegal logging. There are fewer enforcement bodies and opportunities to regulate illegal fishing given the lack of monitoring and enforcement ability on the high seas, coupled with low capacity for monitoring and enforcement in many countries’ Exclusive Economic Zones (including ports).
  • Why do certain governments ban illegal logging and enforce it but don’t do the same for illegal fishing?
  • Forest concessions have clear boundaries with observable satellite data of deforestation and monitors can more easily access the forests than access fishing vessels.
  • Deforestation is linked to different agricultural commodities (food, etc.) so traceability or establishing linkages is harder.
  • In forestry, addressing illegality is spoken simultaneously with responsible and sustainable management of the resource. 

Other interesting questions and thoughts

 

  • How can governments model Norway? Norway uses its International Climate and Forest Initiative to firmly pursue conservation — withdrawing or reducing aid funds dramatically if targets or behaviors are not being met in countries where they invest.
  • Should philanthropic funds support law enforcement?  The question was asked since there are big issues around enforcement capacity: could donor funds be used to further support that capacity?  The answer was that it hasn’t been thus far.

 

At the event, WRI launched the Open Timber Portal which intends to reward good actors throughout the supply chain and expose information on those who are not.  Funded by DFID, Norway, USAID and others: “OTP brings transparency to timber operations. It makes public previously inaccessible information about on-the-ground management practices and compliance with timber legality requirements. It compiles information from three different sources: official concession boundaries and the list of registered forest operators from the government; documents uploaded voluntarily by forest operators to demonstrate compliance; and observations by third party forest monitors.“

On the final day, SALT Advisory Committee member Giuliana Torte presented on the EU policies on legality in timber and drew a parallel to IUU fishing – bringing my participation full circle. You can find the full agenda here or reach out to WRI if you have more questions.

 SALT Advisory Committee member Giuliana Torte presenting a slide

Should SALT host something similar to this week-long forestry event for learning, but for Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing?  Let us know your thoughts.

 

Written by

SALT staff Jenny Barker
Jenny Barker, M.P.A
SALT Chief of Party
Tags: Forest Legality Initiative, Illegal Logging, Traceability, IUU, WRI, Open Timber Portal
Share:

More Stories

Group standing in front of co design event banner in Tanzania
  • SALT Feature
  • Video

A reflection on a Tanzanian co-design event for traceability, featuring Felister Kamuli

February 10, 2023
  • SALT Feature

SALT 2022 in Review

February 9, 2023
  • SALT Feature

Q&A with IFT’s Global Food Traceability Center: How Governments can Build a Scalable, Long Lasting Seafood Traceability Program

December 13, 2022
seafood worker on boat pulling up catch
  • SALT Feature

What data can help us uncover human and labor rights risks in the seafood sector?

September 26, 2022
A dash of SALT logo
  • Audio
  • SALT Feature

Dash of SALT Podcast Episode 2

September 26, 2022
person pushing a tablet
  • Community Feature
  • SALT Feature

How Can Comprehensive Seafood Traceability Principles Guide the Design and Implementation of Electronic Systems in the Real World?

August 23, 2022
fishing boats
  • Community Feature

Q&A with MCD & VinaTuna: Applying the Comprehensive Traceability Principles in Vietnam

July 27, 2022
Photo of Mr. Ono
  • SALT Feature

Giving Fish a Passport? A New Electronic Traceability Effort in Japan

July 6, 2022
Supermarket aisle with empty red shopping cart
  • SALT Feature

U.S. Retail Traceability Trends: A Digest

June 15, 2022
RECEIVE UPDATES FROM SALT SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

Footer Logo
  • What is Salt?
  • Principles
  • Seascape Map
  • Story Hub
  • Supply Chain
  • Dive Deeper
  • Linkedin
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Spotify
  • Youtube
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 SALT

This product is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of FishWise and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.