Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 4 • 4th March 2005

Tropical Timber Conference Continues Scope Debate

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The United Nations Conference for the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) 1994, convening for their second meeting from 14-16 February in Geneva, failed to make headway on discussions relating to the scope and financial basis of the new agreement. Based upon debates started at first round of negotiations (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 6 August 2004), discussions on the Preamble and Objectives of the agreement were divided between countries, such as Norway, who supported a broadening of the scope to include coniferous tropical wood, non-timber forest products and ecological services, and those who opposed broadening, such as the EU, owing to concerns that it could lead to overlap with other multilateral agreements, change the ITTA from a commodity agreement to a multilateral environmental agreement and would be unlikely to contribute to poverty alleviation. The ITTA is a commodity agreement negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development that explicitly recognises the need to balance conservation and sustainable use of tropical forests. A third round of negotiations on the successor agreement will be held from 27 June - 1 July in Geneva. Negotiators hope to complete negotiations as soon as possible although the official deadline is 31 December 2006, when the ITTA 1994 expires.

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ICTSD Reporting; ENB Vol. 24 No. 57, 21 February 2005.