Governments world-wide have now recognised the severity of the illegal-logging problem and various programmes are being implemented.

The Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) programme is a multi-stakeholder process to tackle forest crime and improve governance.

In some cases, legislation has been enacted to tackle the problem head-on. The United States has introduced the Lacey Act making it an offence to import timber harvested illegally in the country of origin.

The European Union is likely to follow suit and is also negotiating Voluntary Partnership Agreements with major timber producing countries as part of the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEG-T) initiative.

Other countries such as Japan and Australia have public procurement policies specifying the use of sustainably produced timber in government projects.