Environment Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 19 January 2005.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will incorporate social criteria involving impacts on indigenous forest people into official programmes for responsible timber use.
The Government's timber procurement policy is aimed, in part, at helping to improve the well being of forest dependent peoples throughout the world. The Government is asking its timber suppliers to provide independent verification that their timber was legally harvested and preferably grown in well-managed forests. In many producing countries the forest laws will help to protect indigenous people's rights, customs and livelihoods. The application of certification scheme standards and equivalent standards that provide assurance of sustainable forest management will add to that protection in many instances.
The Government does not place contractual obligations on its suppliers to take direct action to protect indigenous people because the Government understands that to do so would be in contravention of EU procurement directives. EU procurement law prohibits the specification of criteria that are not strictly relevant to the performance of a contract. Specifications must relate to what is being procured rather than to the people or undertakings that produce what is being procured.
Yes1 person thinks so
No0 people think not
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