European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (2006 International Tropical Timber Agreement) Order 2008

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (2006 International Tropical Timber Agreement) Order 2008. The noble Lord said: This order covers the ratification of the 2006 International Tropical Timber Agreement. The agreement, approved on 27 January 2006, provides for the governance of the International Tropical Timber Organisation. The objectives of the 2006 ITTA are to promote the expansion and diversification of international trade in tropical timber from sustainably managed and legally harvested forests and to promote the sustainable management of tropical timber-producing forests. The ITTO is a small organisation. Its 60 members represent about 80 per cent of the world’s tropical forests and 90 per cent of the global tropical timber trade. It is based in Yokohama, Japan, and here I pay tribute to the generosity of the Government of Japan in hosting the ITTO. The ITTO was established at a time when there was increasing concern about the fate of tropical forests and when it was recognised that, unless tropical forests could provide a significant income to the countries in which they were found, they would be cut down and replaced by agriculture. The ITTO pioneered ways of measuring the sustainability of the management of forests, and this led to the development of certification schemes. Some 320 million hectares of the world’s forests have now been certified as sustainably managed. Most of these forests are in Europe and North America, where the governance of forests is strong, not least because the institutions, like our own Forestry Commission, are strong. In Africa and Asia, only 0.1 per cent of forests have been certified as sustainably managed. Problems of poor governance and underinvestment in the capacity to manage and regulate forests have held back many tropical developing countries. The ITTO can help to build that capacity with the information, technical guidance and training that it provides, as well as with project funding. Since it became operational in 1987, the ITTO has funded more than 800 projects at a cost of $300 million. Project funding has not always been well focused and had become out of step with the approaches to funding favoured by development agencies. The 2006 ITTA recognises this and provides for new thematic programmes which will focus efforts on a small number of priorities, such as forest law enforcement and governance, forests and climate change, and community forest management and enterprises. In making available to its members up-to-date information about prices from around the world, ITTO’s market information service helps reduce the transfer pricing that used to plague the tropical timber trade. ITTO has been responsive to the suggestions of civil society and private sector advisory groups by, for example, championing the development of community-based forest enterprises. It has been active in promoting the restoration of degraded forests as part of the Global Partnership for Forest Landscape Restoration, to which the UK Forestry Commission lends its support. The 2006 ITTA remains focused on the sustainable management of tropical forests and the trade in tropical timber, but builds on previous agreements by focusing future work on new priorities and better ways of working. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (2006 International Tropical Timber Agreement) Order 2008. 30th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—(Lord Tunnicliffe.)