Timber chief wants tropical forest pact ratified

The chairman of the International Tropical Timber Council urged members to ratify a 1994 deal to encourage trade in timber from sustainably managed forests.

"At this stage there appears to be a likelihood that the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) 1994 may not go into force (as planned) in September," Ruben Guevaila Monacada of Honduras told the 18th council meeting in Accra recently.

Host Ghana, meanwhile, urged producers to show conservationists they were committed to the survival of the world's rain forests. Timber is Ghana's third biggest export earner after gold and cocoa and accounts for six percent of GDP.

President Jerry Rawlings, opening the meeting, said logging and forest protection could go hand in hand. "Instead of telling conservationists in consuming countries to mind their own business we should be educating them in the measures we have taken towards sustainable management and demonstrate our commitment to a timber industry and trade that would rather ensure the survival of our forests," he said.

Rawlings blamed poverty and ignorance for the depletion of the world's rain forests and said this had to be understood. "The pressures of growing populations and the basic needs of our peoples as well as the effects of poverty, ignorance, greed, short-term expediency and vested interests all make global sustainability a very difficult task," he said.

The 1994 ITTA accord pledges sustainable forest management and diversity conservation by the turn of the century. Rawlings said producing countries needed help to meet the year 2000 objectives. "This depends in part on the provision of external financial resources to supplement our own," he added.

The ITTC's parent body, the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), is the main discussion and decision- making forum on tropical forest management and use. Set up 10 years ago, it groups 25 producing countries and 26 consumer nations.

Japan dominates the consumers' voting rights with a third of the vote, followed by South Korea with about 10 percent. Indonesia, Brazil and Malaysia are the main forces on the producers' side with almost 45 percent between them. The eight African members have 23 percent of the vote.

Rawlings said the ITTO should consider the issues of poverty and ignorance in the fight against deforestation. "The greatest single cause is slash-and-burn agriculture in response to the needs of the growing population," he said.

Rawlings said some conservationists fostered negative attitudes towards the use of tropical timber, damaging the trade and the economies of poor producers like Ghana. But he acknowledged: "It is an inescapable and unpleasant fact that cause for concern does indeed exist. Damage has been and continues to be done by inappropriate policies, by ineffective enforcement and trade malpractices."

He said illegal logging made a strict code of conduct for tropical timber buyers necessary. Proposals under discussions include tagging wood from sustainably managed forests so consumers can identify it in the way they can pick out labelled vegetarian or organic foods.

"It appears premature to determine what exactly is meant by verifiable sustainable management on which certification eventually will be based," Rawlings cautioned. "Let us charge the International Tropical Timber Organisation to intensify its vigilance on the application of the concept so that it is not misapplied by certain interest groups."