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- Research of Measures Taken to Illegal Logging Issues in Consumer Nations Survey Results (Outline)
Research of Measures Taken to Illegal Logging Issues in Consumer Nations Survey Results (Outline)
3.Results of Survey
(4) Lacey Act
(A) Actions corresponding to requirements of Lacey Act, i.e., prohibition of trading wood/wood products using overseas illegally-harvested timber and exercise of “due care” (Multiple answers accepted, Total number of respondents: 29)
Regarding how to check illegally-harvested overseas timber, 22 respondents replied “conducting periodical documents examinations” and 17 answered “visiting suppliers for on-site inspection”. Others includes “requesting timber supplier to submit certificate of forest certifications such as FSC” and “requiring overseas suppliers annually signatures on the certificates of Lacey Act compliance”.
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Conduct documents examination | 10 | 11 | 1 | 22 |
| Visit suppliers to conduct on-site inspection | 7 | 9 | 1 | 17 |
| Others | 7 | 4 | 0 | 11 |
(B) Influence on business of exercising “due care” in Lacey Act
The rate of answer “Due care considerably affected business” stays at low with only 3 respondents out of 29, all of those raised “cost increase” and “procurement policy change” as the main points of the influence of due care exercise. Among the 13 who responded “slightly affected”, 9 chose “cost increase” which is followed by “procurement policy change” raised by 6 and “suppliers’ change” by 4. The rest of 13 answered “not affected”. From this result, it can be said that each individual company is taking any actions to cope with due care exercise.
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Due care considerably affected our business | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Due care slightly affected our business | 5 | 8 | 0 | 13 |
| Due care did not affected our business | 9 | 4 | 0 | 13 |
What were the considerable affects?
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Increased management workload/cost | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Changed items of marketing products | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed timber suppliers | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Changed customers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed procurement policy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Others | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What were the slight affects?
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Increased management workload/cost | 3 | 6 | 0 | 9 |
| Changed items of marketing products | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Changed timber suppliers | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Changed customers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed procurement policy | 5 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Others | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
(C)Influence on business caused by “obligation of filing a declaration upon importation”
Only one out of 29 replied “obligation of declaration considerably affected”, 11 responded “slightly affected and the rest 17 said “not affected”. Again cost increase is the major point of the influence.
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Obligation of declaration considerably affected our business | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Obligation of declaration slightly affected our business | 4 | 7 | 0 | 11 |
| Obligation of declaration did not affected our business | 10 | 6 | 1 | 17 |
What were the considerable affects?
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Increased management workload/cost | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed items of marketing products | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed timber suppliers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed customers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed procurement policy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Others | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What were the slight affects?
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Increased management workload/cost | 4 | 6 | 0 | 10 |
| Changed items of marketing products | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed timber suppliers | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed customers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Changed procurement policy | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Others | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
(D) Penalty in Lacey Act
The answer “Yes, I know penalty in Lacey Act” was dominant with only 3 who replied “No, I do not know”, which shows the acknowledgement of Lacey Act is considerably high in the industry. About the contents of the penalty, 13 said “it is appropriate” but 6 answered “it is too strict and gives a burden on companies.”
There are some other opinions, which are;
- It should be the responsibility of wood producing country to keep legality in harvesting wood. Therefore it is unreasonable that the penalty of illegal logging is to be imposed on the purchasers who buy/import wood from the fair, open market.
- Our company’s internal regulation strictly controls and conforms to the legal requirements and the current penalty is not at all too strict in order to keep fairness.
- We have not prepared to cope with the Lacey Act requirements so cannot comments on it.
Do you know of the penalty under Lacey Act?
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| Yes, I know it. | 14 | 11 | 1 | 26 |
| No, I do not know it. | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
Opinion about penalty in Lacey Act
| Answers | N.A. | EU | Others | Total |
| It is appropriate. | 9 | 4 | 0 | 13 |
| Penalty is necessary but this penalty is too strict. | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Other opinions | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
