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Open Timber Portal

About the portal

Background

The Open Timber Portal is an initiative launched by the World Resources Institute to incentivize the production and trade of legal timber.

As such, this 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 US Lacey Act, the Korea Act on the Sustainable Use of Timbers, the Japan Clean Wood Act, the Australia Illegal Logging Prohibition Act and the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). For more information on these laws, please visit www.forestlegality.org.

The OTP compiles information from three different sources: official concession boundaries and the list of registered timber producers from the government; documents uploaded voluntarily by timber producers to demonstrate compliance; and observations by third party forest monitors. The list of documents to be published by operators is specific to each country. It is established based on the legality grid developed by national actors as part of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) process between the producer country and the European Union. A VPA is a legally binding trade agreement between the EU and a timber-exporting country outside the EU. A VPA aims to ensure that all timber and timber products destined for the EU market from a partner country comply with the laws of that country. For more information on the VPAs, please visit http://www.euflegt.efi.int/what-is-a-vpa.

Contact us

Please get in touch with us if you have any further questions regarding the Open Timber Portal or want to get involved: opentimberportal@wri.org.

Partners

The Open Timber Portal was designed jointly by the World Resources Institute and partners in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including industry associations in country, at the regional level and among importers, as well as NGOs, researchers, government enforcement officials and donors. The following groups have helped develop the concept and with testing the site: Resource Extraction Monitoring (REM), Field Legality Advisory Group (FLAG), Observatoire de la Gouvernance Forestière (OGF), Cercle d’Appui à la Gestion Durable des Forêts (CAGDF), Conseil pour la Défense Environnementale par la Légalité et la Traçabilité (CODELT) and the Association Technique Internationale des Bois Tropicaux (ATIBT). These partners also helped with the deployment of the site in the Congo Basin, with the support of CIDT, Brainforest, CIEDD, CED and FODER within the scope of the Citizen Voices for Change project.

The OTP was built by Vizzuality.

REM

FLAG

OGF

CAGDF

Brainforest

CED

FODER

Le Commerce du Bois

RENOI-RDC

ECODEV

ATIBT

Donors

The Open Timber Portal is made possible with the generous support from the following donors:

UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

The aim of UK Aid Direct is to support civil society to deliver solutions to achieve sustained poverty reduction and to achieve the Global Goals. UK Aid Direct focuses on reaching the most vulnerable and marginalised populations, in particular girls and women, to ‘leave no one behind’. The priorities of UK Aid Direct reflect wider strategic objectives: Strengthening global peace, security and governance Strengthening resilience and response to crisis Promoting global prosperity Tackling extreme poverty and helping the world’s most vulnerable Delivering value for money

Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment

Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) aims at supporting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+). NICFI has the following key objectives, adopted by the Norwegian parliament: 1. To contribute to the inclusion of REDD+ under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 2. To contribute to early actions for measurable emission reductions from deforestation and forest degradation. 3. To promote the conservation of primary forests, due to their particular importance as carbon stores and for their biological diversity.

EU

EU development policy seeks to foster the sustainable development of developing countries, with the primary aim of eradicating poverty. It is a cornerstone of EU relations with the outside world and contributes to the objectives of EU external action – alongside foreign, security and trade policy and international aspects of other policies like environment, agriculture and fisheries.

Bureau of Internal Narcotics & Law Enforcement (INL)

The State Department’s Bureau of Internal Narcotics & Law Enforcement (INL) combats crime by helping foreign governments build effective law enforcement institutions that counter transnational crime—everything from money laundering, cybercrime, and intellectual property theft to trafficking in goods, people, weapons, drugs, or endangered wildlife. INL combats corruption by helping governments and civil society build transparent and accountable public institutions.