On June 19th -20st 2018, Thai – EU FLEGT Secretariat Office arranged the technical workshop meeting between the sub-working groups and representatives from European Forest Institute (EFI). The meeting aimed to improve documents regarding Legality Definition (LD), Thai Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS), verification of unregulated species on Private land, and Thai Due Diligence System (TH – DDS).
On 19th June 2018, TEFSO started with the agenda talk with EFI team before bringing in the consulting over the Import Control, led by the Import Control sub-working group leader. For this issue, some details in the paper such as the Standard Form and the Flow Chart were suggested to revise while some issues were suggested to have more discussion such as clear responsibilities between the Customs and Royal Forest Department as well as the linkage between National Single Window and Due Diligence System (DDS).
For the Afternoon session of the same day, the meeting then started with the discussion over Supply Chain Control before coming to the conclusion of the first day of this technical workshop meeting. It was suggested to create 3 tables regarding supply chain control with each control point and its descriptions, in order to made clear in each step of the supply chain control.
On 20th June 2018, the meeting started with EFI’s answering to questions on VPA legal text from Thailand and followed by consulting with the sub-working group on LD revision which provided presentations by Ms.Pavinee Udommai. Based on the discussion, the consultant will amend the LD by consulting with the related agencies and propose to AHWG before submitting the final report to the EFI for further process.
In the same day, the sub-working group on unregulated species on private land also had an opportunity in discussing with the EFI team. The team suggested Thailand to have more discussion over the flowchart and the system as well as to combine 2 papers into one.
After that, the sub-working group over Timber Legality Assurance System then recieved suggestions from the EFI for the last group. The EFI team made clear on how different between verification unit and licensing unit is as well as provided suggestions on paper revision.
Besides, the suggestions given to Thailand in preparing for the next meeting were also provided. Meanwhile, Thailand will bring the suggestions to consideration and improve them based on the Thai context for further process.
