inter government agreements

• the international tropical timber agreement (2006) which restricts the trade in hardwoods taken from the rainforest
• the very high prices paid for tropical hardwoods have encouraged a huge amount of illegal felling which takes place in remote areas of the rainforest and often goes unnoticed by forestry officials
• the 2006 agreement restricts the trade in hardwood timber to timber that has been felled in sustainably managed forest
• all such timber has to be marked with a registration number
• the CITES (convection on international trade in endangered species, 1973) treaty blocks the illegal trade in rare and endangered animals and plants #
• the illegal trade is still worth millions of pounds
• in 2001, a group of Brazilian and companies joined forces and established the 'National Hardwood Flooring Association', its mission was to promote the use of hardwood flooring but to use technological advancements to ensure sustainability of forest resources
• the company used the ITTA agreement of 2006 to help them, Universities then came on board to investigate lesser known hardwood species that would be appropriate for flooring that were not endangered species and also developed methods to minimise waste
• this was cited by NGOs to prevent logging of mahogany trees in brazil in 2002. these trees take 60 years to grow to their height of 500 ft
• worldwide demand for mahogany furniture fuelled the issue and led to a 70% reduction in supply and the ned to control the destruction of the trees