Building a strong future for the timber sector in Vietnam: enhancing capacity for timber legality assurance 

The implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (VPA FLEGT) is a joint commitment of Viet Nam and the EU to tackle illegal timber harvesting and trade in illegal timber. Since the signing of the VPA FLEGT Viet Nam continues enhancing its Timber Legality Assurance System (VNTLAS), a comprehensive framework for legality of timber throughout the supply chain.

From June to August of 2024, a series of 7 trainings, including 1 training of trainers, was organised. This is paving the way for enhanced compliance in the timber processing sector by equipping officials and timber processing enterprises with skills to implement different aspects of the VNTLAS.

The more than 200 participants have now the relevant capacity for implementing the enterprise classification system and compliance verification. Following the legal requirements of the VNTLAS, staff under provincial forest protection departments are responsible for enterprise classification, including the evaluation and verification of information against defined set of criteria. Besides, enterprises are accountable for submitting a comprehensive set of documents as part of the enterprise classification system as well as setting up their due diligence systems.

This effort to enhance capacities is one of many trainings conducted under the framework of the project “Support to the implementation of the FLEGT VPA in Viet Nam” commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ) and jointly implemented by GIZ and the Forest Protection Department (FPD).