INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL TIMBER ORGANIZATION
By Anton Antonio
January 29, 2016
One of the underlying messages at the Earth Summit in 1992
was the concept of sustainable development.
The World Bank defines “sustainable development” as “Development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future
generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainable development contains two key concepts: (1) the concept of
needs, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which
overriding priority should be given; and, (2) the idea of limitations imposed
by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability
to meet present and future needs.
The concept of “sustainable forest management”, on the other
hand, is also anchored on the same sustainable development concept as popularized
at the Earth Summit. Popularizing and
promoting sustainable forest management is the primary objective of the
International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO).
“The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) is an
intergovernmental organization that promotes conservation of tropical forest
resources and their sustainable management, use and trade. The organization was established under the
International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), which was sponsored by the
Unites Nations Conference on Trade and Development and was ratified in
1985. Its mandate was renewed by the
International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994 and again by the International
Tropical Timber Agreement, 2006, which aims to promote sustainable management
and legal harvesting of forests that produce tropical timber, and to promote
expansion and diversification of international trade in timber from these
forests. The governing body is the
International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC).
Half the votes on the ITTC are assigned to producing countries and half
to consumers. Within each block, votes
are assigned based on market share. The
ITTO was at first primarily a commodity organization, regulating the
international trade in tropical timber.
The original mandate mentioned conservation but did not give any details. In 1990 the ITTC proposed that by 2000 all
exports of tropical timber would come from sustainably managed sources, and
this goal was adopted. In 1987 the ITTO
commissioned the Harvard Institute for International Development to prepare a
review of current knowledge of multiple-use management of tropical
forests. Of interest was the potential
for non-timber forest products and services that could assist in sustaining the
forest. HIID compiled the study in 1988
and issued updated versions in 1990 and 1992.
The ITTO publishes a quarterly newsletter, Tropical Forest Update (ISSN
1022-5439), available also online.” (Wikipedia)
Although the ITTO is an intergovernmental organization and
international in scope, the success of sustainable forest management largely
depends on the individual country’s institutions and systems that protect the
forest. Weak systems and institutional
structures, however, will most likely result to poor implementation of the
goals and objectives of the International Tropical Timber Organization.
Thoughts to
promote positive action…
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REFERENCE:
Wikipedia, (2016). “International Tropical Timber
Organization”. Retrieved on January 29,
2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tropical_Timber_Organization
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