As part of SPOTT’s ongoing work to help address illegal logging and unsustainable forestry practices in tropical forests, SPOTT held the second Forestry Transparency Forums in Douala, Cameroon and Jakarta, Indonesia in February and March 2020.
Building on the 2019 series of Forums, the workshops this year brought together a total of 65 participants from 44 organisations, including stakeholders from forestry and palm oil companies, government, industry associations and service providers, and civil society organisations.
The Cameroon Forum provided a space for participants to present and discuss issues pertaining to the Cameroonian forestry sector, including how SPOTT complements wider initiatives such as the FLEGT process between the European Union and Cameroon, voluntary certification schemes such as FSC and other DFID/FGMC funded schemes such as the Open Timber Portal initiative, run by the World Resources Institute. ZSL also welcomed special guests from the Banque de Développement des Etats d’Afrique Centrale (BDEAC).
The Indonesia Forum focused on sharing the lessons learnt from the implementation of timber trade transparency in Indonesia from the perspectives of different stakeholders: government, business and civil society. These issues were discussed in the context of Indonesia’s FLEGT licensing system and voluntary certification schemes, and considering the need for progress ahead of 2020’s international conferences on the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Climate Change Summit. Both of these and the recognition of required progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will see 2020 as a year where buyers and investors shall be seeking more demonstrable progress by producers.
Full workshop reports, including details of presentations and Q&A sessions, can be downloaded below.
Indonesia Forestry Transparency Forum
This forum meeting was held in Jakarta in partnership with IBCSD
Read the report
Cameroon Forestry Transparency Forum
This forum meeting was held in Douala
Read the report
