Europe took aim Wednesday at illegally harvested timber with new rules to halt imports in a bid to protect forests around the world and fight climate change. The European Parliament was due in a vote to outlaw illegal timber or products made from such wood, which makes up around one-fifth of all timber imports into the European Union, and punish unscrupulous dealers. Green member of the European Parliament Satu Hassi called the legislation an 'internationally important breakthrough.' More than half of illegal logging takes place in vulnerable regions such as the Amazon Basin, central Africa, southeast Asia and Russia, according to the European Union. Illegal logging costs governments up to 15 billion euros (19 billion dollars) per year in lost revenues, stripping countries of funds that could be used elsewhere, the EU says. The bill seeks to close a loophole in the industry because it is currently not against the law to sell timber in the EU that was cut down illegally in its country of origin. Under the proposed rules, importers will have to seek sufficient guarantees that the timber they are bringing in is legally harvested. Traders such as furniture sellers must then make sure that the origin of the wood used to make their products is traceable. While the legislation will cover the 27-nation EU, it will be up to individual member states to set penalties for wrongdoers. But the bill does not call for any criminal prosecution for importing and selling illegally-harvested wood. 'It is up to member countries to make the worst offences crimes,' Hassi said. The new rules will be implemented in 2012 to give national governments time to draft their own sets of sanctions and fines, she said. Environmental groups have welcomed Europe's move to combat illegal logging. 'The world's largest market is about to shut its gates to companies profiting from illegal trafficking and forest destruction,' Greenpeace EU forest policy director Sebastien Risso said recently. 'The black market for wood products is often run by criminals fuelling conflict, robbing governments of revenue and causing irreversible environmental destruction,' he said. But Greenpeace expressed regret that the regime of sanctions and penalties proposed in the legislation was 'too weak' and that the date of application of the regulation will come too late, some two years after the entry into force. 