Tropical Forest Update

Issue 24 No 1

Moving beyond conflict on procurement

Public timber procurement policies have been a hot topic of debate among governments, tropical timber traders and environmental groups for a very long time. Environmental groups argue that tropical timber-importing countries can lead the way to sustainable forest management by buying only certified or at least legally verified tropical timber; timber-exporting countries say that such procurement policies give non-tropical timber an unfair market advantage; and traders worry about the cost of conforming to new standards. Public timber procurement policies, therefore, are a divisive issue in international forest policy.

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Editorial_1-2 from TFU 24-1 (E) Web

ITTO’s Executive Director, Emmanuel Ze Meka, inspects the identification tag on a Cameroonian log in Shanghai, China, as part of the monitoring of ITTO Project TFL-PD 017/09 Rev.2 (M). That project, described on page 17, aimed to assist small and medium-sized forest enterprises in China in procuring legal tropical timber from sustainably managed forests. Photo: Li Qiang, ITTO

• The impact of timber procurement policies

• Verifying timber in Africa

• Ecuador’s new public forest information system

• Guatemala’s timber traceability system

• Procuring legal and sustainable tropical timber in China

• Goho-wood: Japan’s system for combating illegal logging

• Timber procurement policies must evolve

• Fellowship report

• Market trends

• Topical and tropical

• Recent editions

• Meetings.

Full edition

The ITTO Tropical Forest Update is published quarterly in English, French and Spanish.
The French and Spanish editions are usually posted about one month after the English.

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