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International Tropical Timber Council: Thirty-Fifth Session

 
Yokohama, Japan | 3 - 8 November 2003

                                                                                                           Version Française

                                                                                                           Versión en español

Highlights from Friday, 7 November

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On Friday, delegates to ITTC-35 convened in council and committee sessions and in an open-ended drafting group to continue negotiating the Council's decisions. In the morning, the Committees on Reforestation and Forest Management (CRF), Economic Information and Market Intelligence (CEM), Forest Industry (CFI) and Finance and Administration (CFA) met to approve their final reports to the Council. In the afternoon, the Council considered: a study on internationally traded and potentially tradable environmental services provided by tropical forests; the report of the credentials committee; the promotion of sustainable forest management (SFM) in the Congo Basin; and a report on experiences of implementation of ITTA, 1994. Also in the afternoon, the open-ended drafting group negotiated the Draft Biennial Work Programme for 2004-2005.

Photo: Patricia Hanashiro, Secretariat, Manoel Sobral Filho, ITTO Executive Director, ITTC-35 Chair Bin Che Freezailah, and Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine

 
Council Session
Manoel Sobral Filho, ITTO Executive Director, ITTC-35 Chair Bin Che Freezailah, Malaysia, and Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine, US
 

Cleto Ndikumagenge, Consultant, outlined work on the review and assessment of experiences in forest management partnerships undertaken in Central Africa, describing: background information on the forestry sector; an assessment of forestry management; experiences with forest management partnerships with, inter alia, the ITTO, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, World Conservation Society, and the French Development Agency; and proposals for partnership models for the enhancement of forest management. He noted problems faced by the partnerships in terms of delays in the release of funds by governments, lack of personnel with adequate technical expertise, and inadequate monitoring and evaluation of field activities. Ndikumagenge recommended, inter alia, the development of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism, creation of a coordination mechanism for partnerships, the improvement of management tools, consolidation of the roles of private sector and civil society, and the entrenchment of forest concession management in activities regarding the establishment of transboundary protected areas.

 

 

Andy White, Forest Trends, presented on the current status and future potential of markets for ecosystem services (ES) of tropical forests (ITTC(XXXV)/6). Noting that different types of ES include watershed protection, biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration, he said the main buyers of these are local private investors. He elaborated on the main markets and payment schemes, which are: public payments to private forest owners to maintain or enhance ES; open trading under a regulatory cap; self-organized private deals; and eco-labeling of forest farm products.

Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine, US, Manoel Sobral Filho, ITTO Executive Director, and ITTC-35 Chair Bin Che Freezailah, Malaysia:

The Chair introduced the agenda item on the ITTO Fellowship Programme, and the Secretariat presented an overview on the implementation of the ITTO Fellowship Programme (XXXV)/19. The Chair of the Selection Panel, Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine, presented the Committee's report and said countries need to do a better job advertising the fellowship programme, and encouraged more donor countries to provide financial resources for the programme. The Chair noted that 26 of 90 applicants received awards, which included awardees from Nepal, Brazil, PNG, and Indonesia. She encouraged more applications related to CEM and CFI activities, and also described the Committee's decision to update and improve selection criteria for the fellowship programme.


Side event: Innovative Wood Drying: Technology to Improve Wood Quality by UNIDO Tokyo


Committee on Economic Information and Market Intelligence and Committee on Forest Industry
The draft report of the thirty-third session of the CEM/CFI (CEM-CFI XXXIII/7) was reviewed for approval by the CEM/CFI.


Committee on Reforestation and Forest Management

Co-Chairs A.S.K. Boachie-Dapaah and Henri Félix Maître, and Eva Mülller, Secretariat

The CRF considered its draft report of the session (CRF(XXXIII)/9) and approved it with minor amendments. Chair Henri-Félix Maître confirmed that the dates and venues of the next two sessions of the CRF will coincide with ITTC-36 and ITTC-37, and said that decisions on the date and venue of the thirty-sixth session of the CRF is still pending.


Informal drafting group: The drafting group resumed discussion of the ITTO Biennial Work Programme for 2004-2005. They considered a list of proposed activities to be implemented by the ITTO Executive Director, and adopted a paragraph requesting the technical committees to develop terms of reference (ToR) for some of the activities. Participants debated whether proposed activities should be listed in order of priority, and decided that such prioritization is not essential.
Patricia Hanashiro, Secretariat, Manoel Sobral Filho, ITTO Executive Director, ITTC-35 Chair Bin Che Freezailah, and Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine
The drafting group concluded its work with applause and with chocolate

Miscellaneous Photos

             Delegates in the corridors before the convening of the morning session

Links |

ITTO website, with provisional program, documents for the meeting, and information about the ITTO.
ENB summary from ITTC-34: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
ENB summary from ITTC-33: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
ENB summary from ITTC-32: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
Linkages forests, desertification and land issues page, including a brief introduction to global forest policy.