The 2019 FLEGT Day is being held this Tuesday, December 10 in Abidjan on the theme: contribution of forest law enforcement to improving forest governance, results and prospects. This activity opened in the presence of Gbogou Lohoury, Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Water and Forests and Stéphane Brossard, representative of the Ambassador of the European Union in Côte d'Ivoire.
It emerges from the exchanges that 70% of Ivorian wood and wood products are exported to the European market. A market that has become more demanding in terms of legality. Illegal logging impoverishes populations, deteriorates the quality of the living environment and degrades forest and environmental resources. It costs producing countries between 10 and 15 billion euros per year in uncollected revenue.
Since its accession, in 2013, to FLEGT (Application of Forest Regulations, Governance and Commercial Exchanges), Côte d'Ivoire has improved the involvement of all actors in decision-making relating to the management of forest resources.
Also, it has succeeded in involving civil society and the population in monitoring compliance with operating standards through Independent Observation. And conduct studies and capacity building contributing to the formalization of the national market.

In the future, Côte d'Ivoire intends to finalize the definition of timber, develop the national traceability system and validate the public policy document for the purchase of legal timber.
All of the above is at the initiative of the European Union. The objective is to enable Côte d'Ivoire to fight against illegal logging. And therefore, enable it to recover its forest potential, which has gone from 16 million hectares in 1900 to around 3 hectares today.

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