© ITTO 2002 THE INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL TIMBER ORGANIZATION Forest Products Markets in 2002 and 2003 Tropical Hardwoods ECE Timber Committee Market Discussions 25 September 2002 S. Johnson, ITTO Secretariat

Logs and sawnwood more or less stable, but main markets shifting (northern Europe down, southern Europe up) Plywood stable or increasing in most markets SPWP from tropical countries increasing in all markets Still many problems with import statistics TRENDS IN ECE IMPORTS

ECE TROPICAL LOG IMPORTS

ECE TROPICAL SAWNWOOD IMPORTS

ECE TROPICAL VENEER IMPORTS

ECE TROPICAL PLYWOOD IMPORTS

TROPICAL TIMBER TRADE, US$BILLIONS dashed line = estimate

Japan market still declining China booming (now third biggest plywood exporter) MAIN ASIAN MARKETS

 Africa - Cameroon log ban, log supply shifting to Gabon, Congo, CAR, Liberia  ITTO assisting harmonizing of C&I, setting up of PAFC  Lots of (unsustainable?/”secret”?/illegal?) logs going from Indonesia-Malaysia-China, Malaysia has now banned Indonesian log imports  Latin America - Brazil monitoring mahogany exports more closely, all exports must be harvested as per management plan SUPPLY SITUATION

Auditing guidelines developed to complement ITTO C&I – establish “Standard of Performance”, will assist countries to implement Assisting Malaysia and Indonesia with NTCC and LEI schemes Tropical countries not well served by currently available international certification schemes ISSUES FACING ITTO: CERTIFICATION

MAPA OF FSC CERTIFIED FORESTS

Maybe most serious threat to SFM and image of SFM in tropics ITTO bilateral trade discrepancy studies underway, 13 volunteers as follows: ISSUES FACING ITTO: ILLEGAL LOGGING BoliviaPapua New Guinea BrazilPeru CameroonRepublic of Congo ChinaThailand IndonesiaUnited Kingdom JapanUnited States Malaysia

Very positive that countries are now discussing problem openly Need to distinguish between coordinated illegal felling for export, for domestic mills and for subsistence, different strategies needed for each ISSUES FACING ITTO: ILLEGAL LOGGING (cont.)

TRADE DISCREPANCY

TRADE DISCREPANCY (cont.)

ISSUES FACING ITTO: TROPICAL TIMBER PROMOTION ITTO has done substantial project work on promoting tropical timber in general and especially lesser-known species (29 project to date worth US$6 million). Current projects include one in Ghana developing educational campaign for tropical timber consumers, another in Honduras investigating ecological impact of more intensive harvesting of LKS and their utilization/marketing.

ISSUES FACING ITTO: TROPICAL TIMBER PROMOTION (cont.) Many members of ITTO (especially those close to trade) want the organization to work more rigorously to counter misinformation about and bias against tropical timber in some markets, especially Europe.

THE INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL TIMBER ORGANIZATION