ITTO commits another US$10 million for Tropical Forests
ITTO commits another US$10million for Tropical Forests
20December 2004
publishedby Earth Negotiations Bulletin
Yokohama, Japan, 20 December 2004: Projects to develop national-levelprinciples, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management in theRepublic of Congo, undertake fire management and post-fire forest restoration inGhana, and continue the development of a transboundary conservation area in theEmerald Triangle of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos were among those funded by theInternational Tropical Timber Council, which met here last week.
The Council is the governing body of the International Tropical TimberOrganization (ITTO). It meets twice a year to discuss a wide-ranging agendaaimed at promoting the sustainable use of tropical forest resources and thetrade of sustainably produced tropical timber.
The Council financed a total of 16 new projects at this session, includingone that will help establish seed orchards for indigenous tree species in Sabah,Malaysia, another that will strengthen capacity in China to implement theNational Code of Practice for Forest Harvesting, and another to assist in theestablishment of collaborative forest management in Jambi, Indonesia.
Among the activities funded at this session was a review and revision of theITTO Guidelines for the conservation of biodiversity in tropical timberproducing forests. Since the original guidelines were published in 1992, newapproaches to biodiversity conservation have been designed and tested. Therevision, which will be done in collaboration with IUCN, the Convention onBiological Diversity and other relevant organizations, will take these intoaccount with the aim of producing state-of-the-art guidelines for use at thenational and forest-management-unit levels.
The Council also made two substantive decisions. One of these is aimed atmaking improvements to the ITTO project cycle, while the other will continue tostrengthen cooperation between ITTO and the Convention on the InternationalTrade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in the applicationof CITES rules to the trade of mahogany and ramin species.
The major donors at this session were the governments of Japan, Switzerland,the United States and the Netherlands, while the governments of Finland, Norway,the Republic of Korea and New Zealand also pledged funds. In addition, fundswere mobilized from the Unearmarked Fund of the Organizations SpecialAccount, its Bali Partnership Fund Sub-account B and the Working CapitalAccount.
Descriptions of the newly funded projects will be published in a lateredition of the ITTO Tropical Forest Update. For more information contact theITTO Secretariat at itto@itto.or.jp
See the Earth Negotiations Bulletin coverage of the session athttp://www.iisd.ca/forestry/itto/ittc37/
