International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)
Parties to International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA, 1994) are to provide statistics and information on timber, timber trade and activities aimed to achieving sustainable management of timber producing forests. Members are asked to submit data annually on their national production, trade, supply, stocks, consumption, and prices of tropical timber for the Annual review and assessment of the world timber situation of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO).The objectives of ITTA are, inter alia:
- "to provide an effective framework for consultation,
international cooperation and policy development among all members with regard to all relevant aspects of the world timber economy, including international trade in tropical timber, and
to enhance the capacity of members to implement a strategy for achieving exports of tropical timber from sustainable managed sources."
Members are to supply other statistical data and specific indicators, as requested by the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC), and to report on activities aimed at achieving sustainable forest management and on progress towards ITTO´s year 2000 objective.
At its 24th session (May 1998), the ITTC strongly urged member countries to apply the (revised) ITTO Criteria and Indicators for reporting in relation to the Year 2000 objective (Decision 3 XXIV).
At its 30th session the ITTC encouraged member countries (Decision 9 XXX) to submit their first national level report by the end of 2001 using the ITTO reporting format (ITTO, 2001).
ITTO published the Status of tropical forest management report 2005, largely based on the national reports. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the forest management situation in all 33 of ITTO’s producer member countries. Using information submitted by the countries themselves and supplemented by data from a wide range of other sources, it addresses the policy and institutional settings in each country, the approaches taken to the allocation and management of resources, and the status of management of those resources. Go to:
Reports: content and reporting frequency
ITTO members report on forest management using national level reporting formats which are based on individual forest management unit reports.The reporting format for the national level report is detailed, calling for both qualitative and quantitative information on the ITTO indicators of the following criteria for sustainable forest management (SFM):
- enabling conditions for SFM (laws, policies, regulations, institutional capacity, investment, economic instruments, technology, information, participation);
- forest resource security (resource base-area, forest type, resource protection);
- forest ecosystem health and condition (area/degree of damage from human activities and by natural causes, protection procedures);
- flow of forest products (resource rights, harvesting levels; existence of management plans, management guidelines and long-term projections; etc.);
- biological diversity (protected areas, threatened/endangered species, genetic diversity, monitoring and evaluation,
- soil and water (area managed for and measures taken for soil/water protection;
- economic, social and cultural aspects (contribution to GDP, quantity/value on non-wood forest products, efficiency of use of harvested products, employment, occupational safety, cultural aspects and social uses, participation, indigenous people).
The reporting formats (
national and FMU level ) are available on ITTO web site.The ITTO/FAO/UNECE/EUROSTAT Joint Forest Sector Questionnaire is used to collect country data as production, consumption and trade on forests products; it is published in the ITTO annual review and assessment of the world timber situation.
The main topics of the Forest Sector Questionnaire are:
- production and trade of all timber by ITTO Producers and Consumers;
- direction of trade in volume of primary tropical timber products between major ITTO Producers and Consumers;
- major tropical species traded;
- prices of major tropical timber and selected competing softwood products;
- trade in secondary processed wood products.
Last updated: August 2007