Australia Illegal Logging Due Diligence

The Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 came into force on 1 November 2013, making Australia one of the first countries outside Europe to enact mandatory due diligence legislation targeting illegally harvested timber. The Act makes it a criminal offence to import regulated timber products — and to process raw logs domestically — without first conducting due diligence to reduce the risk that the timber was illegally logged. Regulated timber products include raw logs, sawn timber, plywood, wood panel products, pulp and paper, and furniture with wood components, covering a large share of Australia's timber import trade.

The due diligence obligation has two components: a process requirement (conducting the due diligence) and a documentation requirement (retaining records of the process and evidence gathered). The Regulation specifies what information must be gathered — species (by scientific name), harvest country and region, and evidence of legal harvesting authority — and requires importers to assess the risk of illegal logging in the harvest location and apply risk mitigation measures where risk is elevated. Australian Border Force and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) can request compliance records at any time, and inspectors can seize products where due diligence documentation is absent or inadequate.

The Act specifically cautions against over-reliance on supplier assurances without independent verification for high-risk supply chains. Recognised third-party forest certifications — FSC, PEFC, and their endorsed national standards — are accepted as strong evidence of legal harvesting and reduce the due diligence burden substantially. For supply chains without third-party certification, importers must conduct more rigorous verification, potentially including country risk assessments from TRAFFIC or equivalent bodies, species DNA testing, and supplier site visits. Australia's Act differs from the EU Deforestation Regulation in that it focuses on legality rather than deforestation risk, but the underlying supply chain documentation requirements overlap significantly. Sustalium structures the due diligence record at the shipment level, linking harvest evidence to each import entry and maintaining a five-year evidence archive.