To develop a forest law enforcement community of practice able to conduct international controlled delivery operations that would help bring timber and wildlife smugglers to justice. and reduce international trade and trafficking in illicit forest products.
Accurate conversion factors for standing timber and export grade sawn wood are crucial for the effective implementation of the CITES convention. With technical assistance from Intercooperation and PROFOR's FLEG team, Guatemala has developed national yield tables and volumetric conversion factors for mahogany.
PROFOR has uploaded a new tool on its website which should be of interest to a variety of exporters, wood associations and specialists: the VERITAS Timber Volume Calculator. This product could potentially be used globally by forest stakeholders to complement verification of timber legality and chain of custody initiatives -- by helping to identify red flags or anomalies in timber flow data and accounts.
This activity, completed in June 2010, produced analysis, recommendations and programs that are helping INAB and supporting the Guatemalan government's efforts to combat illegal activities in the forest sector. Read the technical manual and a report on the pilot program to verify timber supply -- in Spanish -- on this page.
Technical assistance to improve wildlife trade law enforcement in Mongolia was funded under the EU FLEG program, later integrated into PROFOR, in 2009-2010.
In 2009 a World Bank report called Roots for Good Forest Outcomes provided the framework for a comprehensive look at forest governance in terms of five building blocks and their principal components and subcomponents. The next step was to develop a simple and actionable governance diagnostic tool which would help benchmark and pinpoint areas requiring reform.
A meeting aimed at discussing guidance frameworks for providing information and assessing forest and REDD+ governance (following up on the Stockholm symposium on forest governance indicators held in September 2010).
On May 4th, Indonesia concluded Voluntary Partnership Agreement negotiations with the European Union. This marked the culmination of a long process toward establishing a legality verification system in the country and an important milestone for forest governance reform.
An event organized by Forest Trends in Washington DC
