Eco-Worries Undercut Tropical Timber Market
11/2/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
According to Malaysia, environmental concerns over tropical timber
are a "serious trade barrier." Expect this line of reasoning to
figure prominently in World Trade Organisation (WTO) efforts this
month to dismantle forest environmental regulations through the
proposed "global free logging agreement" (recall recent action alert
at http://forests.org/recent/wtothrfo.txt ). Malaysian timber
companies threaten to bring industrial forestry practices to most of
the World's remaining large rainforests--threatening millions of
species with extinction, and decimating the Planet's self-regulatory
ecological systems. Sustainability of tropical rainforest function
and composition requires excluding large scale, industrial forestry
from remaining ancient forests. Industrial logging of rainforests,
as being practiced by Malaysian companies and others, must be
outlawed before there is nothing left.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Eco-Worries Undercut TROPICAL Timber Market
Source: Environment News Service, http://www.ens.lycos.com/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 2, 1999
YOKOHAMA, Japan, November 2, 1999 (ENS) - Environmental concern has
become the most serious trade barrier against tropical timber, says
Malaysian Minister of Primary Industries Dr. Lim Keng Yaik.
Yaik said in a speech at the 27th Session of the International
Tropical Timber Council, held in Yokohama, Japan, "As we all know,
under ITTO's objectives, promoting sustainable forest management is
one side of the coin; promoting improved market access and non-
discriminatory timber trade is the other side."
Tropical sawn timber has lost at least 30 percent of its market in
several European countries this past year because of arbitrary
actions by European subnational authorities and pressures by
non-governmental organizations on the trade and consuming public, the
minister said.
"In the name of environmental protection, a renewable resource like
tropical timber has lost out to high-energy based substitutes," Yaik
told the Asia Pulse on Monday.
While western countries are applauded for seeking redemption for past
deforestation, tropical forest countries are condemned for any act of
deforestation, even if it was done in moderation and for good
reasons, said Yaik. Other tropical timber industries will suffer if
nothing is done to counter misinformation about tropical timber
forest management that has scourged the market, he warned.
To date, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) has
funded 345 projects worth US$145 million and in the process, the Bali
Partnership Fund was established, Yaik said.
"With help from ITTO, and what producer countries themselves had
done, and are continuing to do, to come to terms with sustainable
forest management, one would expect that if environmental
considerations were taken into account, they should impact positively
rather than negatively on the trade in tropical timber," he said.
Yaik said that Malaysia had no problems with timber certification if
that was needed to meet niche market requirements. He set up the
National Timber Certification Council to develop a timber
certification scheme based on ITTO's criteria and indicators and
adapted to suit Malaysia's condition. The country had estimated a
budget of US$ 1.6 billion to implement sustainable forest management
activities over a five-year period to the year 2000, a figure which
was a strain on financial resources as it is still recovering from
the Asian economic crisis.
He urged other countries to accept ITTO's criteria on certifications
to help overcome market resistance against tropical timber with
ITTO's recognized authority.
ITTO members now comprise 53 producer and consumer countries
representing some 75 percent of the world's tropical forests and 95
percent of world trade in tropical timber.