While policy issues and subjects such as risk and due diligence were widely discussed, the emphasis was on the commercial aspects of trading in tropical timber.
The conference looked at the challenges of establishing a supply of quality hardwoods and focused on the tropical forest belt of West Africa, the Congo Basin, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Guyana. It also highlighted the Open Timber Portal, a web platform developed by the World Resource Institute to help promote compliance with legal requirements in timber harvesting and trade; and the work of the Sustainable Tropical Timber Coalition, the aim of which is to increase European consumption of sustainable tropical timber.
“The tropical forest belt is more important and more newsworthy than ever before,” said David Hopkins, TTJ managing director.
“We must ensure that timber is part of the solution, not part of the problem and to do that we have to know what is happening on the ground.”
A full report will appear in a forthcoming issue of TTJ.
