Forest Legality Week 2019 Summary

The Forest Legality Initiative, a project of the World Resources Institute (WRI), convened partners and stakeholders in October 2019 in Washington, DC, to advance dialogue and initiatives related to the international trade in timber. The three-day event drew 189 attendees from more than 20 countries. Topics under discussion included linkages between climate change and illegal logging, corruption and the timber trade, the island of New Guinea, consisting of Papua New Guinea and the province of Papua in Indonesia, Peru, and policy developments in the EU on the EU Timber Regulation and the EU Communication on Stepping up Action to Protect and Restore the World’s Forests. Side events held before the start and after the close of the main conference included a meeting on corruption and financial flows and illegal logging, a discussion on main takeaways for timber from the August 2019 CITES Conference of Parties, discussions on early warning systems and a coordination and exchange meeting among providers and users of due diligence support tools. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Forest Service provided generous support for the event. Below is a summary of the conference presentations and discussions. The presentations from the sessions can be found here. Please note that since the event was webcast and we share the presentations, the presentations are on the record, but we do not attribute any audience comments and questions to individuals. The contents detailed below do not necessarily reflect the views of WRI or conference participants.