Dr. Hosny El-Lakany, Assistant Director-General, FAO;
Dr. Dietrich Burger, GTZ;
Dr. Markka Simula, the Seminar Coordinator;
Distinguished Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of Dr. Manoel Sobral Filho, the Executive Director of ITTO, who sends his greetings and best wishes, I wish to extend a very warm welcome to all of you to the FAO-GTZ-ITTO Seminar on Building Confidence Among Forest Certification schemes and their supporters this morning. I should also like to take this opportunity to put on record ITTO's deep feelings of appreciation to FAO and GTZ for co-organizing and co-sponsoring the Seminar, and to FAO for having kindly agreed to host it here at FAO's Headquarters in Rome. In this connection, the individual contributions and efforts by Mr. Killmann, Mr. Bourke, Mr. Burger and Ms. Barbara Kudemer in planning, organizing and conducting the Seminar deserve our full recognition.
We in ITTO are very delighted to be associated with the convening of this Seminar. It is our fervent hope that the Seminar would contribute towards enhancing our understanding and cooperation with regard to the issue of compatibility and mutual recognition of credible certification schemes, in facilitating the participation of developing countries and relevant members of civil society in the ventilation and deliberation of this emerging issue, and also in achieving further progress in confronting the problems arising from the proliferation of forest certification schemes and initiatives. Therefore, the presence of participants from developing countries, including those representing civil society at this Seminar, is, indeed, greatly welcomed as this will contribute directly towards facilitating their involvement in the mainstream of thoughts and activities within the current and latest developments surrounding the issue of forest certification.
The issue of forest certification has been evolving and its origins could be traced back to the late ninety-eighties when the global concern for the conservation of tropical forests was probably at its highest. Those years also coincided with the formative years of ITTO during which its pioneering mission of assisting efforts to bring tropical forests under sustainable management was launched through the ITTO Objective 2000. For these reasons, ITTO work relating to forest and timber certification began at a relatively early stage, way back in 1993, and has revolved on the commissioning of relevant studies, development of guidelines, criteria and indicators of sustainable management of natural tropical forests, the development of auditing systems of sustainable forest management and relevant project activities to assist developing member countries in this field. For the purpose of this Seminar, we have prepared a short information paper outlining ITTO work of relevance to forest and timber certification and we hope to share the paper with distinguished participants during the course of this Seminar.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Together with FAO and GTZ as co-organizers and co-sponsors of this Seminar, ITTO has high hopes for its fruitful outcome and its direct contribution towards making further progress in finding concrete and workable solutions to the problems relating to forest and timber certification. In this way, we hope to be able to pass the baton safely and firmly to the next initiators and thereby pave the way for yet more progress to be achieved in the foreseeable future.
I thank you all for your kind attention.