Study On The Effects Of Wood Legitimacy Process On Tropical Forest Products Trade In China

In recent years, illegal logging and associated trade has become a priority issue on theglobal sustainable development agenda and an important issue in the global politics as well asin bilateral and multilateral dialogues. In the meanwhile, the United States (U.S.) and theEuropean Union (EU) has initiated processes to minimize the risks of illegal timber, which hasexerted direct and indirect impacts on international trade of forest products and attracted theunprecedented global attention to the coordinated development of environment and trade. Atpresent stage, the international requirement for timber legality is now exerting far-reachinginfluence on the Chinese trade of tropical forest products, and we should also be wary of thetrade protectionism in the name of environment and technology. If so, the advantages ofresources and labor on the part of China will be offset to certain extent. Therefore, the researchon the impacts of legal timber processes on Chinese trade of tropical forest products is now animportant effort we should make to find a solution to this issue.On the basis of theoretic and practical background, this thesis analyses the current statusof Chinese trade of tropical forest products, and the trade fluctuations of different forestproducts in the recent decade, explains with large quantity of data how China has become agiant in the international trade of tropical forest products and elaborates pressures of thenon-tariff barriers in the name of standards, certification and environment protection thatChina faces with the rapid development of tropical forest products trade with ASEAN andAfrican countries.Furthermore, this thesis elaborates the background situation of EU policy-making onconsumer market of major forest products through analysis of the launching of Forest LawEnforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) by EU and the African trade of forest productswith China, which shows that FLEGT will make it more difficult for China to import timberfrom Africa. Therefore, it is an urgent job for China to establish legal timber verificationsystem in order to promote the sustainable development of global forest products trade. This thesis analyses the current status of Sino-EU forest products trade, describes theimportant role of EU in the Chinese export of forest products, and the promulgating process aswell as the main provisions of EU Timber Regulation, and concludes that legality verificationwill play an important role in EU market. The EU importers will require the Chinese exportersto provide verification of the legal sources of related timber products, particularly tropicaltimber which is vulnerable to high illegal logging risks. The enforcement of this Act will exertsignificant impacts on the international timber market including Chinese market and theinternational forest products trade.Besides EU, U.S. is also a major trade partner with China in term of forest products. Thisthesis analyses the current Chinese forest products trade with U.S. and shows the highdependence of Chinese forest products on the American market. Through description of thehistorical evolution of the Lacey Act, this thesis analyses its impact on Chinese enterprises,which demonstrates that the reporting of timber legality will be more difficult withdramatically increased operational costs and risks for Chinese enterprises. The Sino-US tradeof forest products will face declining risks.Moreover, legality is the minimum requirement of forest certification, and promotion oflegal timber supply and achievement of sustainable forest management is one goal of forestcertification. This thesis analyses the historical evolution of forest certification and its impacton Chinese forest products trade with ASEAN countries, takes Malaysia's trade with China asan example to elaborate the functions and role of forest certification in the forest productstrade.At its conclusion, this thesis proposes the establishment of Chinese legal timberverification system which will ensure wise management of forests and legal export of timberon the part of timber producing countries, and safeguard the benefits of timber importing andconsuming countries in order to combat illegal logging and associated trade in a more effectivemanner. This thesis offers the proposals for China to adopt at national and international levelsto combat illegal logging and associated trade.