* Deal to fight illegal logging will keep EU markets open
* Liberian timber increasingly in demand
By Alphonso Toweh
BUCHANAN, Liberia, May 15 (Reuters) - Forested nations used to fear tough rules on logging would hurt their valuable timber industries, but for Liberia they could be a way of reviving its sector - by giving it privileged access to European markets.
From 2012, any country that wants to export wood to the European Union will have to be able to prove it was not logged illegally, a regulation that has spurred a spate of deals with timber producing nations to better police their forests. The latest to enter into such so-called Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) on forest management were Indonesia last week and Liberia on Monday, a move the poor West African state hopes will help revive its logging industry.
They follow similar deals with Ghana, Cameroon and Congo Republic last year. For Liberia -- a country which despite being tiny hosts about half of West Africa&${esc.hash}39;s remaining virgin rainforest and many of its threatened species, according to the European Forest Institute (EFI) -- the deal comes amid a surge in demand for Liberian timber after many years of hardly any.
CEOs of timber companies now regularly fly down to its jungles from European capitals to make big purchases.
"Some timber here in Liberia which is very much in demand, so I came down to select them personally," said the CEO of Abex Bois Exotiques Pierrer Piequet at a timber field in the forest near the port of Buchanan, as workers loaded logs onto a truck.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Liberian timber amid allegations former President Charles Taylor was using the industry to fund wars in the region. The ban was lifted in 2006 but logging has been slow to pick up since.
"HIGH DEMAND"
The buzz of chainsaws and crunch of bulldozers on branches echoes through the hot, humid forests of Liberia&${esc.hash}39;s River Cess country, in a concession operated by local firm Tree and Tree, one of four logging companies with Liberian licenses.
"We get many buyers coming here mainly from Europe and Asia. There are species such as the Niagon, which is in high demand in Europe," the company&${esc.hash}39;s assistant operations manager George Duo told Reuters at the site.
Liberia still retains 45 percent of its original primary forest, substantially more than other countries in the region, but it also urgently needs development and jobs, after decades of war and economic stagnation.
Officials hope the VPA will balance the need to sell its wood with the need to conserve its forests for future generations, which means regulating loggers.
"The coming into place of the VPA marks an end to illegal logging in the country. For too long, we&${esc.hash}39;ve suffered from these illegal activities," said Vice President Joseph N. Boakai said when he signed for the Liberian government on Monday.
The VPA Agreement sets out reforms across the timber sector that will enable it to keep selling to Europe when the EU adopts its 2012 regulation on illicit timber.
Liberia must monitor harvesting and shipping of wood -- and be able to show it was legally sourced to be allowed into Europe, but doing so will give it a secure export market.
Local logging operators say they back the deal.
"We are happy to have a legal framework set up for the country," said Ricks Toweh, manager of Tree and Tree, adding that his company had helped draft the legislation.
"It is a new beginning for us."
Timber exports once accounted for more than 20 percent of Liberia&${esc.hash}39;s gross domestic product, but the sanctions stopped commercial forestry.
If the VPA works, then the industry could rebound whilst still preserving West Africa&${esc.hash}39;s biggest rainforest. (Writing by Tim Cocks)
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