ITTO-CITES Program for Implementing CITES Listings of Tropical Timber Species

Introduction

This Project is a multi-year collaborative project between ITTO and CITES with financial support of the European Commission (Primary donor) together with other ITTO donor countries (U.S.A, Japan, Norway and New Zeland), that would provide specific assistance to countries throughout the tropics to design forest management plans, forest inventories, provide guidelines and case studies for making “Non Detriment Findings” (NDFs), and develop and disseminate tools for timber identification. This project, which could play an important role in implementing the recommendations of the Mahogany Working Group (MWG) and CITES Plants Committee on mahogany and other timber species such as ramin and afrormosia listed in CITES Appendix II.

Overall Objective

To ensure that international trade in CITES-listed timber species is consistent with their sustainable management and conservation.

Specific Objective

To assist national authorities to meet the scientific, administrative and legal requirements for managing and regulating trade in Pericopsis elata (Afrormosia) found in Central Africa, Swietenia macrophylla (Bigleaf mahogany) found in Latin America, and Gonystylus spp. (Ramin) found in SE Asia and, in particular, to develop guidance to ensure that utilization is not detrimental to the survival of CITES-listed timber species.