About 50 timber traders attended the Timber Trade Federation’s (TTF) workshop on sourcing legal timber from Indonesia.
The London event on June 4 was chaired by Finnforest (UK) Ltd managing director John Tong and focused on the development of a collective approach to supplier assessment in Indonesia which will lead to independent auditing of the supply chain.
The TTF’s focus on Indonesian timber is part of the Indonesia-UK Memorandum of Understanding to tackle illegal logging.
The Timber Trade Federation is a hosting workshop to promote the sourcing of legal timber from Indonesia on Wednesday 4 June 2003. The workshop will contain presentations from the International Development Department, the Indonesian Forestry Ministry, the World Wildlife Fund, the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Tropical Forest Trust as well as input from Timber Trade Federation member companies.
Mark O’Brien, TTF public affairs manager described the meeting as: “another important step for the trade in helping to reduce the problem of illegal logging in Indonesia.
“This problem can only be solved with greater forest law enforcement on the ground and from increased co-operation from other markets trading with Indonesia. The UK has a relatively small role to play in solving this problem given that only 4% of the total Indonesian cut is imported into the UK market but the trade is determined to continue play a positive role in tackling these issues.”
