Successor treaty includes new clauses on promoting sustainability, reforestation, illegal logging; information sharing on voluntary mechanisms such as certification of timber from sustainable forests.

The text of a successor treaty to the 1994 International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) was adopted in Geneva on 27 January following two weeks of intense negotiations. After knife-edge consultations and more than two years of discussions, the objectives of the new agreement emphasize the importance of sustainable forest management and predictable funding for the international timber trade.

There was concern before this latest round of negotiations that talks might fail and leave the world without any international agreement on tropical timber in 2007. The biggest stumbling block was the issue of how to finance the agreement and the need for predictable funding. But in the evening of Friday, 27 January, consensus was finally reached, and as one delegate explained, the biggest winner was the world´s tropical forests.

The new text calls for strengthening the capacity of member States "to improve forest law enforcement. . . and address illegal logging and related trade in tropical timber." It also encourages member States "to support and develop tropical timber reforestation, as well as rehabilitation and restoration of degraded forest land, with due regard for the interests of local communities dependent on forest resources."

The Agreement also notes that "poverty alleviation" should be an objective of tropical timber harvesting and trade. All of the 33 producing nations which are members of the current Agreement are developing countries. Global sales of tropical timber earn these countries a collective average of US$ 10 billion per year.

The conclusion of this agreement in Geneva reflects UNCTAD´s historical role in international commodity agreements. The purpose of the agreements is to create consensus between producer and consumer countries. Given the importance of commodities to many developing countries, these agreements also help to increase the transparency of markets for commodities through sharing statistics and other valuable data. The international commodity organizations - such as the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) - can also help developing countries make the best use of their commodity sectors.

This treaty is one of several international commodity agreements negotiated under the auspices of UNCTAD. Other agreements concern cocoa, cotton, grains, sugar, and olive oil and table olives.