The ATIBT Forest Commission

The ATIBT Forest Commission is a resource centre for ATIBT members, providing them with indispensable tools for the elaboration, implementation and technical monitoring of forest management plans.

Since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 when for the first time the issue of forest management planning was addressed globally, an increasing number of forest concessions in the Congo Basin have engaged in sustainable procedures of forest management plannin.

A strong commitment

By the end of 2009, more than 12 million hectares of forest concessions in the sub-region had received State approval for their forest management plans out of a total of 36 million hectares of granted concessions. These figures are expected to progress rapidly over the next 5 years due to the fact that forest management plans at various stages are being elaborated on approximately 20 million hectares.
The reason for such a commitment is obvious: forest management planning is the precondition for “good forest practices” and therefore considered as an indispensable and necessary management tool in the perspective of certification.

In an industrial perspective

In order for foresters to carry out true sustainable forest management, those plans need however to match ecological aspects and traditional economic aspects.
Once the goals are reached, economic operators are confronted with the difficulties of certification including important challenges in terms of company organisation and investments.
This is the reason why decision-making processes concerning forest management planning and forest production must be included in industrial choices.
They also need to consider the aspect of carbon revenues in forest concessions under management planning. This issue and challenges resulting from it are addressed by the ATIBT Climate Commission.
Lastly, forest territories represent an important potential for the expansion of forest plantations which, in precious tropical wood producing countries, provides opportunities for the industrial timber sector.

Targeted skills

As the body in charge of these issues, the ATIBT Forest Commission, chaired by Doctor Bernard Cassagne, brings together the skills forest enterprises need for the elaboration of tailored forest management plans to fit the context of each concession.
The Commission also provides counselling and technical support based on specific and updated skills in each competency area:

• the progress of research on forestry and sustainable management of tropical production forests as a tool of economic and social development;
• RIL (Reduced Impact Logging) methods
• social needs and relations between the company and forest populations;
• faunistic aspects
• forest regeneration and plantation
• Convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES)
• forest certification and timber products chain of custody

A reference work

The aggregate work carried out within the framework of the ATIBT Forest Commission has resulted in a synopsis intended for professional players in the timber industry.
This technical work of reference in 3 volumes called “Plans pratiques d’aménagement des forêts naturelles de production tropicales africaines”/Practical management planning of natural tropical African production forests (Volume 1: Forest Production – Volume 2: Social aspects – Volume 3: Faunistic aspects) is available in the website’s Library section.