The Global Timber Tracking Network (GTTN) Regional Workshop for Asia will be organised back-to-back with the IAWA-IUFRO international symposium on “Challenges and Opportunities for Updating Wood Identification”, from 20-23 May, in Beijing, China. This is through cooperation with the Chinese Research Institute of Wood Industry of the Chinese Academy of Forestry and IAWA.
The IAWA-IUFRO symposium will take place on 20-22 May and the GTTN-IAWA workshop will be on 22-23 May.
From around the globe, the Global Timber Tracking Network (GTTN) brings specialists together to further cooperation, development and promotion of innovative technologies to screen and/or validate wood species and its origin. These include genetics analysis, stable isotope analysis, mass spectrometry, NIRs, modern wood anatomy tech and other methods.
GTTN promotes these methods with customs, law enforcement agencies, third-party certifiers of responsible forest management, forest-based industries, traders and other actors to independently verify chain-of-custody traceability documentation or to establish species and origin in absence of such documentation.
The GTTN Regional Workshop provides an opportunity to increase regional discussion and cooperation between method developing community and the potential user community, to strengthen both capacities and cooperation amongst Asian countries, with the goal to jointly help securing a legal wood trade.
There are many reasons to have a GTTN regional workshop for Asia. Asia is a region with important timber producing countries like Indonesia and Vietnam. Indonesia is the first, and currently the only, country in the world that is issuing FLEGT licensed timber. Likewise, Vietnam has recently signed its FLEGT VPA. China leads the list of top 10 timber importers based on their percentage of global import purchases. China has been setting up new legislation to promote legally sourced timber and timber products, addressing supply-chain actors both domestically and in timber source countries.
Register on the event page (please note that you need to register separately for the IAWA-IUFRO International Symposium here).
Related documents
Session 1: Introduction to GTTN
- Introduction to GTTN concept and activities
- Asian expertise within the global GTTN network
- Overview of how Asian countries improve their scientific capacities of wood identification
Session 2: Regulatory frameworks
- Overview of the Lacey Act and legality policy development in East Asia
- The EU FLEGT Action Plan, the EU Timber Regulation and the EU-China Bilateral Coordination Mechanism on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance, implications for the forest products trade in the Asia region
- International law enforcement facilitation – Understanding differing intelligence and legislative frameworks
- Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange, a case for stepping up enforcement authorities cooperation in Asia
Session 3: New operational approaches to wood authentication service delivery
- Leveraging forests certified under the Forest Stewardship Council
- The DoubleHelix experience of integrating DNA, isotope and wood anatomy testing methods into operational certification and supply chain due diligence systems
- The Global Oak Project – A further step in the establishment of international databases in support of science-based authentication of traded timber
- Sharing for caring. Technology, samples and data transfer in the context of wood identification