On 25 April 2017, Mr. Chonlatid Surasawadee, Director General of RFD attended as the chairman of FLEGT VPA Ad-HoC Working Group No.1/2017 towards Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) at Maruay Garden Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand. The objective of the meeting aimed to discuss on implementing Timber Legality Assurance System in Thailand. The meeting got attention from multi- stakeholders as well.
Morning session, The meeting received accolade from Dr. Alexander Hinrichs, Regional Advisor for EFI’s FLEGT Asia Regional Support Program to give a lecture on the principle of Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) and control of imported timber, Including technical advise on the initiation of the Timber Legality Assurance System in Thailand.
Afternoon Session, the FLEGT VPA Ad HoC Working Group were divided into 2 groups to consider 2 main issues; 1) Control of imported timber diagram 2) Independent Audit in Thai context and then presented to the meeting.
The last session, the representative of The Federation of Thai Industries, Ms.Roongnapa Wattanavichean informed the meeting about “Developing guidance and piloting standards to promote legality verification of unregulated species on private land to fulfil VPA TLAS requirements” as well.