Emmanuel Ze Meka departs ITTO after 24 years of service
5 November 2015
Mr Ze Meka spearheaded many notable achievements for ITTO during his term. Among these were:
- Establishment of the ITTO Thematic Programmes, thereby opening a new window for the Organization and its members in addressing emerging issues on tropical forests.
- Knowledge management strategy.
- Field training activities, such as the promotion of efficient wood-processing technologies in tropical timber producing countries.
- Updating of landmark policy documents and guidelines produced by the Organization, including:
- Technical studies such as:
- Baseline report of the EU market for wood products prior to the issuance of import licences under the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade programme
- Quantification of carbon benefits of ITTO projects
- Environmental product declarations for meranti plywood, Khaya lumber, ipe and cumaru decking
- Timber procurement policies
- The uses and impacts of criteria and indicators for SFM
- Tropical forest tenure assessment
- Promotion of intra-African trade of timber and timber products
- Formulation of afforestation and reforestation projects in the regulatory carbon market
- Tropical forest and climate change
- The development of forest certification
- Ground-breaking international forums to promote:
- Payments for environmental services provided by tropical forests
- Further processing of timber in the Congo Basin
- Biodiversity conservation in transboundary tropical forests
- Forest tenure, governance and small forest enterprises
- Forest genetic resource conservation and use.
Mr Ze Meka maintained and strengthened ITTO’s collaboration with many international organizations and partners, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) through the ITTO-CITES Programme; the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) through the Joint ITTO–CBD Collaborative Initiative for Tropical Forest Biodiversity; the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); the United Nations Forum on Forests; the Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet); the Collaborative Partnership on Forests; the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification; ASEAN-Korea Forest Cooperation; the Congo Basin Forest Partnership; the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); Birdlife International; and several private-sector organizations.
Mr Ze Meka joined ITTO in 1991 as Project Manager in the Division of Reforestation and Forest Management. He was appointed Assistant Director for the Division of Forest Industry in 2000 and later for the Division of Reforestation and Forest Management. The International Tropical Timber Council elected him Executive Director In May 2007, and he assumed office on 6 November 2007.
Mr Ze Meka’s career before ITTO included senior governmental positions in Cameroon, his home country, where he will now return. ITTO bids farewell to a good friend and leader.