Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Established in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) aims to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to promote regional peace and stability through the rule of law and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter. The ASEAN Charter, which entered into force on 15 December 2008, provides a legal and institutional framework to support the realisation of ASEAN’s objectives, including regional integration.
ASEAN comprises ten countries: Burma, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. ASEAN has ten Dialogue Partners: Australia, Canada, China, EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) also has dialogue status. Australia became ASEAN's first Dialogue Partner in 1974.
As its first Dialogue Partner, Australia has a longstanding and deep relationship with ASEAN, covering cooperation in a range of areas including forestry. Along with Australia’s participation in annual ASEAN meetings with Dialogue Partners, the ASEAN-Australia Forum is held every 18 months to two years, most recently in May 2008 in Canberra.
In 2007, Australia and ASEAN signed the Joint Declaration on the ASEAN-Australia Comprehensive Partnership. The Plan of Action to implement the Comprehensive Partnership provides a framework for future engagement, covering political and security, economic, socio-cultural and development cooperation. The Plan of Action provides for close cooperation in environmental protection and the promotion of sustainable use of natural resources including through public awareness and environmental education, the exchange of information and best practices, specialised training and workshops and enhanced institutional linkages in areas including sustainable forest management (Action 25a). The Plan also provides for cooperation to combat illegal logging (Action 27), and for capacity building, skills improvement and governance strengthening in the area of forestry (Actions 15e and 14d).
The ASEAN Senior Officials on Forestry have established an ad-hoc Working Group on Pan-ASEAN Timber Certification.
This group is preparing and ASEAN Timber legality Assurance Scheme, a generic approach to certification and a proposed chain-of-custody scheme.