A bilateral arrangement exists between the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) that allows sawn wood produced under the Canadian Sawn Wood Certification Program (CSWCP) to be imported into Australia with reduced biosecurity intervention.
The CSWCP was recently known as the Canadian Green Sawn Wood Certification Program (CGWCP) - the program’s scope has been broadened to now include both green sawn wood and sawn wood that has been kiln dried at a temperature lower than 56° Celsius.
The CSWCP covers both containerised and break-bulk consignments.
The CSWCP is a systems approach that mitigates the risk of forest and timber pests being present in sawn wood. Sawn wood arriving with the appropriate CSWCP certification and meeting all other import conditions in BICON will not need further commodity-based biosecurity intervention onshore in Australia.
When lodging entries under the CSWCP, Customs Brokers will need to add an AEI code (AQIS Entity Identifier) that identifies the accredited sawmill that produced the sawn timber. These codes allow tracing of the consignments for reporting purposes stipulated under the bilateral arrangement. The AEI codes are available in the appendices of the relevant timber BICON cases.
Importers and brokers should review the relevant timber BICON cases for specific import conditions and certification requirements.
To become a registered sawmill under the CSWCP, please refer to D-17-04: Canadian Sawn Wood Certification Program available from the CFIA website.
For further information about the CSWCP, please contact Plant Import Operations on 1800 900 090 or by emailing Imports.