This issue of TFU is published as substantial levels of assistance start to flow to some tropical countries through various climate-related initiatives. This is indeed a welcome development for these countries. As ITTO and others have pointed out for many years, it was always unrealistic to expect one (usually under-valued) resource – timber - to fund the bulk of the costs tropical countries incur to sustainably manage tropical forests and maintain the myriad benefits they provide.

Eleven years ago an article published in Scientific American sent shock waves through the tropical forestry community. Entitled Can Sustainable Management Save Tropical Forests?1, the article made a compelling case for the failure of sustainable forest management (sfm) in the tropics, primarily in terms of its inability to (up to that point in time) safeguard tropical forests’ immense biodiversity.

Africa has long languished at the bottom of most global league
tables of economic, social and environmental development.
The reasons for this are many and inter-related but include
poor governance, instability and civil strife, inadequate public health and
education, undiversified and poorly managed economies and a lack of public
and private investment in all kinds of infrastructure.

For a week in July 2007, the Brazilian city of Rio Branco, in the heart
of the Amazon, became the community forestry capital of the world.
Participants from 40 countries came together to explore the emerging
phenomenon of community-based forest enterprises (CFEs)—dynamic, smallscale
businesses that are starting to tap the huge wealth of entrepreneurial talent
that exists in forest-dwelling Indigenous and local communities.

Most countries with significant forest resources have, at one time or another, heard their timber sector referred to as a ‘sunset’ industry. This is usually the case when other economic development options present themselves that can appear more dynamic and profitable than turning trees into boards. The rapid developments underway in the climate change negotiations and the coalescence of several new partnerships to provide funds to countries for averting deforestation (see TFU 17/2) have led some observers (and some tropical countries) to see carbon credits and related funds as a new dawn for the conservation and sustainable development of tropical forests. While there is unprecedented momentum (for which the World Bank and other partners, who recently announced a $300 million fund for averted deforestation, are to be congratulated), it is germane to consider the development of other ‘new dawns’ for tropical forestry that have been announced over the past couple of decades.

Tropical forests are approaching a fork in the road, both in the way they are managed and, more importantly, in the way that their management and conservation is funded. In terms of management, ever larger areas are being devolved to some form of community tenure. According to advocacy groups like Forest Trends and the Rights and Resources Initiative, policy shifts to recognize traditional and indigenous rights have resulted in a doubling of community-owned and administered forest lands in developing countries over the past two decades, to around 370 million hectares of natural forest.

Beginning in 1992, concerted efforts began to list wide-ranging and economically important timber species in the CITES Appendices, the most notable being afrormosia (Pericopsis elata, listed in Appendix II in 1992), bigleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla, listed in Appendix III by several countries since the mid-1990s and in Appendix II with effect from 2003) and ramin (Gonystylus spp, listed in Appendix III by Indonesia since 2001 and in Appendix II with effect from 2005). Appendix II listing means that exports of specified products made from these timber species (primary products for the first two but all—including secondary—products of ramin) require certificates from any exporting country stating that the export of those specimens would not be detrimental to the species' future survival in the wild. These so-called non-detriment findings (NDFs) are essentially confirmation of the sustainable production of exports of these timber species, providing a clear link between the requirements of CITES and the work of ITTO.

One of the most serious obstacles to sustainable forest management (SFM) in many ITTO member countries is illegality in the extraction of forest resources and the trade of forest products. With the international community as close to consensus on the meaning of SFM as it is ever likely to be (all active SFM criteria-and-indicators processes now use the same seven thematic areas), attention has shifted to defining an equally contentious concept: the legality of forestry operations. This edition of the TFU examines this issue.

The tropical timber trade is beating against the current. Prices (particularly for plywood) might be on the rise after several years in the doldrums, but the policy environment in which the trade operates has never been tougher. This edition of the TFU looks at some of the issues.

Economic viability is one of the three basic tenets of sustainable forest management (SFM). SFM might be perfectly feasible technically, but it will still fail if the enterprises that are supposed to be implementing it struggle to make ends meet.

One big problem is the availability of finance. Banks are reluctant to lend to timber operators, particularly small ones. The bottom line is that small businesses stay small, with the ever-present possibility of shrinking away to nothing. Larger enterprises might be more resilient, but they might also find best forest practice elusive if they continually have to pay high rates for their capital. Who is going to invest in natural tropical forest management? Articles in this edition of the TFU explore this question.

This special edition of the Tropical Forest Update summarizes Status of Tropical Forest Management 2005, a report by the International Tropical Timber Organization. It discusses the nature and asseses the reliability of available data; determines, as far as these data allow, the extent of the permanent forest estate in each ITTO producer member country; examines, for each country, the policy and institutional settings for the adoption of sustainable forest management; estimates the area of forest that is actually managed sustainably for production and protection; and discusses how the situation has changed since 1988, when the first survey was conducted, and the significance of these changes for the future. It finds that significant progress has been made towards the sustainable management of natural tropical forests, although the proportion of the total permanent forest estate under such management is still very low.

The full report can be obtained by contacting ITTO or by downloading it from the ITTO website.

Sustainable forest management (SFM) has always been a goal of foresters. The trouble is, the concept of SFM has changed. Once, foresters learned mainly about sustained timber yield—how to calculate it, measure it and achieve it in the forest. Now, the profession has many more concerns: biodiversity conservation, community involvement, and a rapidly changing marketplace, to name only a few. In the tropics, the forestry profession is beset with problems ranging from illegal harvesting and disputed land tenure to the high profitability of alternative land-uses and competition in international timber markets. Given the changing nature of the challenges facing SFM in the tropics, international treaties set up to meet them must also evolve.

Recovering from two recent civil wars, Liberia is in tatters. One of the world's poorest countries, its people live an average of less than 50 years. Its unemployment rate of 85% is reportedly the highest in the world. Even in Monrovia, the capital, basic services such as electricity, clean drinking water and health care are scarce or non-existent; people have a daily struggle to survive. If ever a country needed development (preferably of the sustainable variety), Liberia is it.

This edition of the TFU presents the findings of a recent ITTO diagnostic mission to Liberia. According to the mission, forests could play a big role in the country's recovery, providing employment and foreign exchange, both of which are essential if the country is to rebuild and move towards sustainable development.

Foresters need to become better communicators; we need to talk more. This doesn't mean more international meetings (we probably need fewer of those), it means talking with communities so that we properly understand their concerns.

In this edition of the TFU we explore the emerging concept of forest landscape restoration (FLR). It's not just about techniques that work in a nursery or along a planting line; most importantly it is about the roles, rights and responsibilities of stakeholders and how these can be discerned and accommodated by restoration initiatives.

Frogs aren't well known for their sense of humour, but they might need to develop one in coming decades. Perhaps more than any other order of animals, frogs and toads are under threat--from phenomena like climate change and habitat destruction and a mysterious fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Several rainforest species have gone missing in recent years and others are becoming rarer: according to the recent Global Amphibian Assessment, 1653 of the 5067 known frog and toad species globally are either threatened or extinct.

This edition of the TFU is not about frogs. But these moist and vocal creatures are as good a symbol as any of the challenges facing advocates of natural tropical forests.

The staff at ITTO would like to convey its sympathies to all readers affected by the tsunami that hit Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and other countries in December 2004. Like most people who watched in horror as the full extent of the destruction became apparent, we want to help in the recovery process in the coming months and years.

The corridors of power are located mostly in parliaments and palaces and the central business districts of major cities, and not many of us get to walk them. But policymakers, including those in the forest sector, increasingly talk of decentralisation, the process of transferring power from a centralised source to local governments, local communities and other stakeholders.

Trust is a rare and precious resource, tough to win, easy to lose and difficult to give. It has a pretty low currency in these restive times, many of us not daring to trust our politicians, our generals, our accountants or even, sometimes, our neighbours. Can we trust our
foresters?

Teak has a centuries-old reputation as the king of timbers. It is highly durable, easily worked, attractive, strong and relatively light. It has been used as both a structural and decorative timber in the temples, palaces and houses of the Indian sub-continent for perhaps 2000 years, where its durability has been proved: though popular with priests, princes, carpenters and the common man, termites and fungi tend to shun it.

As short-rotation teak plantations spring up around the tropics, how will this new kind of teak fare in the timber markets of the future?

"The ability of a country to follow sustainable development paths is determined to a large extent by the capacity of its people and its institutions..."

This statement is taken from Chapter 37 of Agenda 21, the blueprint for a sustainable future produced by the Earth Summit in 1992. It might seem blindingly obvious, even tautological. But more than a decade on, the international community continues to grapple with the theory and practice of capacity-building in sustainable development, and how it can best assist countries to do it.