IT IS still a jungle out there – but only just. Twenty years of international pledges and environmental campaigning have barely improved the state of the world’s tropical forests, according to the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of how forests are being managed.
The embarrassing admission comes from the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Japan-based agency set up in 1986 by the producers and consumers of tropical timber to promote “sustainable” forestry. Its members include governments in charge of four-fifths of the world’s tropical forests. After 20 years of activity, however, the ITTO concedes that only 3 per cent of tropical…
