Successor treaty includes new clauses on promoting sustainability, reforestation, illegal logging; information sharing on voluntary mechanisms such as certification of timber from sustainable forests
The text of a successor treaty to the 1994 International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) was adopted early this evening following two weeks of very intense negotiations in Geneva - the fourth round of talks held in efforts to achieve this goal.
The new Agreement includes language -- particularly in its section on "objectives" -- aimed at sustainable management of tropical forests, an issue that has drawn increased attention as such forests continue to disappear at a rate of 15 million hectares per year and as international concern mounts over global warming, which tropical vegetation helps to reduce.
The text calls for "(p)romoting improved understanding of the structural conditions in international markets, including long-term trends in consumption and production. . . and conditions leading to prices which reflect the costs of sustainable forest management."
It calls as well for strengthening the capacity of member states "to improve forest law enforcement. . . and address illegal logging and related trade in tropical timber."
It encourages member States "to support and develop tropical timber reforestation, as well as rehabilitation and restoration of degraded forest land, with due regard for the interests of local communities dependent on forest resources." And it encourages "information sharing for a better understanding of voluntary mechanisms, such as, inter alia, certification, to promote sustainable management of tropical forests, and assisting members with their efforts in this area. . ."
"Certification" can mean the labelling of timber products to ensure consumers that they come from sustainably managed forests.
The Agreement also notes that "poverty alleviation" should be an objective of tropical timber harvesting and trade. All of the 33 producing nations which are members of the current Agreement are developing countries. Global sales of tropical timber earn these countries a collective average of US$10 billion per year.
Solutions were found to stumbling blocks in the negotiations involving the allocation of voting rights within the Yokohama-based International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), which administers the Agreement, and to financing matters.
The Agreement now in effect has been extended twice for three-year periods as nations struggled to balance the concerns of producers and consumers in a new treaty. In recent years there has been increased concern over the loss of biodiversity and other environmental damage caused by the razing of tropical forests. In addition, greater value is being placed on the role of tropical vegetation as a natural photosynthesis "sink" for reducing carbon dioxide, the main "greenhouse gas" behind the global warming trend. Less tropical forest cover means less of a brake on mounting levels of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by such human activities as automobile use and the industrial burning of petroleum and coal.
There was concern before this latest round of negotiations that talks might fail and leave the world at the end of the year without any international agreement on tropical timber.
The treaty is one of several international commodity agreements negotiated under the auspices of UNCTAD. Other agreements concern cocoa, cotton, grains, sugar, and olive oil and table olives. The purpose of the agreements is to create forums for consultations among producer and consumer countries; increase the transparency of markets for commodities through the sharing of statistics and other pertinent information; and help developing countries make the best use of their commodity sectors as they strive to establish sustainable economies. As with the ITTO, international commodity organizations have been set up to administer the other commodity agreements.
