Eco-Worries Undercut Tropical Timber Market

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

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/

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.

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