Known as the BVRIO Responsible Timber Exchange, it gives members the chance to post their requests and offers and receive replies online, thereby increasing market efficiency.

In an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on March 28, 2017, the Ghana associate of the BVRIO, Mr James Mckeown Parker, said the system was going to support the traders in the sector to be able to verify that the timber they were buying from Ghana was legal. 

“Since it’s difficult to come down here and do that, our system is going to help them. We will hook our system into the Wood Tracking System (WTS) that has already been developed so that with the click of the button you do your assessment there and then you can buy timber legally,” he said on the sidelines at a regional workshop in Accra on the ‘Legality and Sustainability in the Timber and Agriculture Supply Chains.’   

Mr Parker said the Forestry Commission did a pilot for the domestic market, and it went well. 

“Unlike formerly where contractors were issued timber utilisation permits for a concession, they gave them documents along the chain when they harvested but all these are going to be digitised and will go into the WTS,” he said. 

He added that anyone buying timber and wood from anywhere in the world could track the documentation from the source.  

BVRIO platform 

It has an in-built risk assessment system to assist users in conducting the due diligence of each of the timber consignments traded.

The President of BVRIO, Mr Pedro Moura Costa, said the trade of tropical timber worldwide had a significant proportion of illegality such that internationally the trade was being affected by the new laws in Europe, Australia and America that required legality of timber products. 

 “In Brazil and elsewhere there is an estimated 60 per cent illegality and because of that the BVRIO creates the exchange to promote the trade of legal timber and the producers that are in compliance with these laws,” he said. 

The regional workshop

Stakeholders in the forest and agricultural commodities supply chain, particularly timber, palm oil and cocoa, government and civil society representatives from Ghana, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon met in Ghana to discuss how legal compliance can support sustainable commodity markets.

Proforest and BVRIO Environmental Exchange co-hosted the workshop in collaboration with the Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), to explore ways in which legal compliance can support reducing forest loss and provide a platform for developing more responsible production and sourcing.