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In the fight against illegal logging, being able to trace wood back to its origin is crucial. In Benin, FAO’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Programme supported the National Timber Agency to establish an efficient traceability system for its teak plantations, helping to prevent illegal activities when state-owned timber is harvested, transported or sold. The barcode-based system, called ONATRACK, allows workers to use their smartphones to send real-time information from the forest, enabling the office to manage the plantations sustainably while increasing profits. The system is a first step in demonstrating legal timber production and will ultimately increase market access for small and medium-sized enterprises that process and export state-owned timber. The system has been so successful that it is now used on all state-owned plantations in the country and has made Benin a leader in traceability in West Africa.
The National Timber Office of Benin (ONAB) produces about 50,000 cubic meters of logs per year from 14,000 hectares of state-owned forests. Local companies buy the wood, mainly teak, and then process and export much of it to international markets.
But companies have struggled to export timber to the EU – one of the world’s largest single importers of timber – since the 2013 EU Timber Regulation came into force, which aims to minimise the risk of illegally logged timber entering the bloc’s market.
For a developing country like Benin, one of the quickest ways to open the door to the EU is to obtain certification that wood has been produced legally – a process that starts with a reliable traceability system. This system assigns a unique identification code to each tree, so that the origin of the wood can be traced throughout the entire processing chain – from felling and storage to transportation and sometimes even to the finished product.
Connections in the forest
When the National Fisheries Ministry’s existing paper-based traceability system was found to be unreliable, the office FAO-EU FLY Programme Converting to a barcoding system is the first step towards obtaining certification and ultimately optimizing the value of their timber in EU and international markets.
The new traceability system, called ONATRACK, consists of a software program that generates unique barcodes for trees and their stumps and logs, and a smartphone app that scans and records the information on site. Even when workers are deep in the forest and can’t get a cellphone signal, the data is stored and automatically updated to a central database when they’re back in range.
To reduce costs, ONAB purchased a barcode printer and trained staff to print and manage labels in-house. In addition, 75 forestry workers were trained in the use of a smartphone application, many using existing smartphones.
Additional Benefits
Although some workers were initially reluctant to adopt the new system, they soon recognized its advantages, such as the elimination of labor-intensive paperwork.
“With the old system, I wrote all the information on forms and sent them to data processing at regular intervals for input,” explains Justin Hounlome, ONAB tree marker. “All of this took a lot of time and delayed payday. With the new system, synchronization means that data processing gets the information on the same day.”
By providing real-time information, the system will not only deter fraud in the numbering, transportation and marketing of state-owned timber, but also serve as a decision-making tool for the National Timber Office to sustainably manage state-owned plantations.
“Beyond its original function of establishing ‘pure traceability’ of wood products, ONATRACK has enabled us to design new work procedures directly linked to improving the profitability of plantations,” said Clément Kouchadé, then Director General of ONAB.
Sharing lessons learned
The success of the system is partly due to the strong political will of the national Ministry of Water Resources and the expertise of the Cameroonian company that implemented the project. In addition, the system was introduced gradually, so the workers who used the tool were able to play a real role in its development.
Following trials in southern Benin, ONATRACK is now used to monitor harvesting on all state-owned plantations, and a delegation of government and private sector representatives from Côte d’Ivoire has visited Benin to learn from the project’s lessons.
“This tool makes us a leader in traceability in the country and in West Africa,” Kuchard said. “The new system enables the Beirut National Forest Agency to improve relationships with its customers, obtain reliable information in real time, and combat fraud and illegal logging.”
FAO continues to support the project while the Beirut Country Office is training more staff across the country to use the system.
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