Project

The Trees Project (Timber Regulation Enforcement to protect European wood Sector from criminal infiltration) is a 20 month transnational project aiming at enforcing the EU Timber Regulation (N°995/2010) implementation as instrument to fight corruption as facilitator of organized crimes activities. It is a research project funded by the Internal Affairs DG of the European Commission as part of the ISEC Program (Prevention of and Fight against Crime).

OBJECTIVE

Worldwide, the European Union is the main importer of wood, whose origin however remain often unclear (20% according to The European Parliament). Consequently, in order to protect its market and its society the EU has adopted a new regulation in 2010 that has entered into force the 6th March 2013.TREES aims at exploring anti-corruption potentialities of this regulation, increasing cooperation among LEAs (such as police bodies and controlling authorities) and private operators, improving their cooperation to fight against crime and transfer project results to EU MS.

ACTIONS

In order to reach its goal the project will collect data concerning criminal routers and criminal events in the EU market, with a specific focus on the Balkans area, and will carry out a vulnerability assessment to corruption of the Due Diligence System in order to identify weak point.Hence, project partners will develop a survey on timber crime to identify LEAs and private operator’s perceptions and experiences concerning corruption in timber sector.
Consequently, project partners will develop tool to assess the various level of risk of corruption in timber market and will collect best practices in risk mitigation.A toolkit to prevent and combat corruption in private business will be developed in order to provide market operators and law enforcement with suggestion on how to implement risk mitigation procedures.Transferability of results will be done through the organization of seminars addressed to LEAs and private operators taking place in Lyon at INTERPOL, in Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and Bulgaria.

More info can be found on project web site: http://trees-project.eu/en/index.php .

And project video on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zStNA8mZxM&feature=youtu.be