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

I welcome the Minister’s statement. Although it is technical, it represents a broad and important area of government and global policy on sustainable forests, rainforests and climate change. There have in the past been certification schemes for timber coming into this country which have failed many of the tests, but we now have new schemes—the Forest Stewardship Council and the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification—that have been much more successful. I was struck particularly by the Minister’s statistic that although the agreement has had a major impact in Europe and North America, only a pathetic 0.1 per cent of forests had been certified as sustainably managed in Asia, where the real challenges lie. We know that Indonesia’s deforestation accounts for something like 3 per cent to 5 per cent of total carbon emissions per annum. I am not sure about the situation in South America. Does the agreement have anything other than a cosmetic effect on what we are trying to achieve, and how can it be made better? It is a great and worthy initiative which we all want to make far better, but in reality it has such a marginal effect on sustainable forests that we should say, ““Great, get on with this—but now we really need to get on with the real job””.