Naujienos

The Timber Trade Action Plan (TTAP) was launched on 11 October in Brussels as an industry response to the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement

Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan.

TTAP is designed to increase the volume of “verifiably legal hardwood timber” traded in Europe by “changing the way industry tracks and buys

timber products”.

The TTAP is managed by the timber trade federations of some of Europe’s leading timber importers: Netherlands Timber Trade Association (NTTA), Belgian Timber Importers’ Federation and UK Timber Trade Federation. Other partners include the Indonesian Mulawarman University’s Forestry Faculty, the Malaysian Timber Council (MTC) and the Tropical Forest Trust. TTAP associates include European Hardwood Federation (UCBD), European Timber Trade Association (FEBO) and French Timber Trade Federation

(LCB). TTAP is inviting other timber trade federations in Europe to join and will run over five years, from 2005 to February 2010. The TTAP website www.timbertradeactionplan.info was officially launched in October.

The European Commission is providing €3.5 million funding to the Plan which will be matched by €700,000 from the European timber industry.

The Plan would enable importers to access funds to help their suppliers become independently verified as producers of legal timber. TTAP will initially work with timber producers based in Indonesia and

Malaysia (around 10 mills) and later with producers in Cameroon, R. of Congo and Gabon. A bid for a similar plan in Latin America was scheduled to be made in late November.