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Our Message
We are advocating a more responsible use of the world's remaining primary tropical forests and the conservation of certain areas of the world which are of global importance to thehuman race.?? The critical issue of global warming runs hand in hand with conservation of the remaining primary forests which represent an invaluable carbon absorbing sink. Such areas - of irreplaceable bio-diversity, natural beauty and habitats for indigenous people - have been defined by conservation groups such as WWF, Conservation International and the Forest Stewardship Council. The term High Conservation Value Forests ("HCV forest") can be applied to old growth forests in Siberia, habitat forests of the orangutan in Southeast Asia, or sacred burial grounds in North America - to paraphrase a WWF position paper. While many countries are involved in the trade in tropical timber, Japan and increasingly China play a key role in consumption of tropical forest products, and this site will initially focus on information on trade to these countries. We advocate that: - Companies involved in using or trading in tropical timber products should trace the chain of supply and ensure that HCV forest-products are sustainably harvested. At present, this excludes most logging in Indonesia, Papua and the Russian Far East, key areas of supply to Japan and China.
- Governments of major consumer countries (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, the US, the EU) work closely with the key supplier countries where there are threatened HCV forests to eliminate illegal logging and work towards sustainable management of forest resources.
- Consumers in developed world countries become aware of how tropical timber products are sold and used in their countries and make buying and consumption decisions which will disfavour unsustainably sourced HCV timber products.
This site will illustrate to all three groups above the trade flows and product categories which utilise tropical timber. Tropical Forest Fires over Indonesia, 1997
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