Legality Assurance System (LAS)

Once legality has been defined, a system needs to be put in place to ensure that only timber identified as legal enters the system. Therefore a traceability system, also known in FLEGT language as ‘Legality Assurance System’ or LAS, is an intrinsic part of the VPA. This is explained in the Loggingoff presentation ‘What are FLEGT VPAs’ and in the EU briefing note number 4.

The LAS spells out the laws and the verifiers and indicators that will be used to monitor whether those laws are enforced as well as the systems used to trace timber through the supply chain, to ensure that timber from unverified operations is separated from other timber. Such systems could include the developing of (electronic) tagging systems that allow to monitor where the timber is in the supply chain and reconcile input and output. The legality is then verified by export consignments, and if positive will receive a FLEGT license if export is destined for the EU.

The LAS is subject to continuous verification and to ongoing independent audits by the independent auditor.

2 results

Documents

Timber Legality Verification Standard for Indonesia

03/05/2010 English in: FLEGT, Indonesia, Legality Assurance System (LAS), Legality Definition

This document is the outcome of multi-stakeholder processes in Indonesia to produce standard to verify timber legality. Hence this is not an official document and translation. This draft has been submitted to the Ministry of Forestry in January 2007 for enactment, which has not happened until now. There is a growing concern that this draft of timber legality verification standard will be watered down during the legal drafting process in the ministry, despite promises from the ministry that they will uphold the standard and that they will not undermine the long arduous proc