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2nd ATIBT Think Tank on the future of forest certification in the Congo Basin

01.02.2019

ATIBT and its partners are working to improve the sustainable management of tropical forests, in order to maintain the Central Africa timber sector and to combat deforestation. Certified sustainable management must therefore be strengthened, and for this, a series of think tanks was initiated in 2018 with PPECF support.

The summary report of the decisions taken during the 2nd think tank of the ATIBT, held in Nogent in January 2019 is available :

The first meeting was attended by 25 people in May 2018. This time, 65 participants from a wide variety of backgrounds met at the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale of Paris, the headquarters of ATIBT, to reflect together during 3 days on how to strengthen the certified sustainable management of tropical forests.

At the end of the workshop, four major axes were reaffirmed to advance a set of twenty actions deemed essential.

Some partial objectives have been achieved, but they are only steps to give competitiveness to certified companies. Indeed, we must go much further, reduce the cost of certification, improve the resources of companies and act politically to combat unfair competition from illegal activity.

The main lines of this reflection have been to improve the image of tropical timber in Europe, to explore new markets for tropical timber, to give back value to forests by valuing ecosystem services and certification, and to develop collaborations with Asia in order to act jointly on the sustainable management of tropical forests. The follow-up of the decisions made during this second think tank will be fundamental in the coming months.