The Government of Cameroon selects Helveta for national wood tracking system to combat illegal logging
16 June 2010
Supply Chain Intelligence platform also provides legality assurance to enable compliance with EU FLEGT initiative
Oxford, United Kingdom, 16 June 2010: Helveta Ltd., the provider of supply chain intelligence software, CI World™, today announces that it has been selected by the Government of Cameroon to provide a national wood tracking system in support of its Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) under the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. Helveta’s CI WorldTM traceability platform will allow the Government of Cameroon to fully comply with the VPA’s requirement for a national timber legality assurance system, seen as a key tool in reducing illegal logging.
The project, won by a consortium comprised of Helveta and Société Générale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS), will commence with trials in several timber supply chains throughout the country, with national deployment anticipated in 2011. Helveta’s technology will be used to map the location of individual standing trees in the forest and, following harvest, to track the wood products derived from them through the supply chain, therefore validating the legal provenance of the wood at export. With such strict criteria in place for exports, the Ministère des Fôrets et de la Faune (MINFOF) is planning to significantly reduce the market for illegal Cameroonian timber and will be able to remove any identified illegal material from the supply chain using Helveta’s CI World™ forest management and traceability platform.
Cameroon is the third and latest country to sign a FLEGT VPA with the EU (which it did on the 6th May 2010), after Ghana and the Republic of Congo. Ghana has also selected CI World™ as the underlying technology for its national wood tracking system. At present, about 80 percent of Cameroon’s sawn timber output is exported to the EU, and the FLEGT VPA will provide Cameroon with a gateway to US$362m [i] of potential timber exports to EU countries.
Patrick Newton, CEO of Helveta, stated, “Cameroon, in addition to Ghana, has now selected CI World™ to provide the necessary transparency and governance for their timber supply chains. This validates Helveta’s position as the chain of custody and legality assurance platform of choice for countries looking to demonstrate compliance and control across their timber supply chains and secure access to premium markets in the EU and US.” He added, “As environmental policy and regulation becomes an increasing priority on all national agendas, we expect to see private industry making use of technologies like CI World to source legally assured timber and avoid procuring unlawful material, in response to both legislation and consumer demand.”
CI World™ is currently being used to monitor in excess of 2.7m hectares of forest across the Congo and Amazon basins and in South East Asia.
[i] “Cameroon signs timber licence agreement with EU”, TTJ Online, 10 May 2010