GCP News

Myanmar remains one of the world’s only countries with no prohibitions on log exports. The country provides much coveted teak and other hardwood logs to the region and beyond. Sawn wood, and to a lesser extent finished wood products, contribute a relatively small amount to Myanmar’s total exports of wood products. As in the majority of Mekong countries, one of the most significant trends affecting forest lands in Myanmar relates to the considerable, and often times informal, foreign direct...

The European Union’s suspension of sanctions against Burma, which will include lifting the prohibition on direct trade of timber and wood products to EU markets, should be an opportunity to introduce meaningful reform directly benefiting the country’s people.

EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg today agreed to suspend sanctions against Burma for one year, opening the way for trade and investment with Western firms.

The London-based Environmental...

The UNFCCC Secretariat has released 12 submissions from Parties containing their views on the various approaches, including opportunities for using markets, to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions, bearing in mind different circumstances of developed and developing countries (FCCC/AWGLCA/2012/MISC.6).

The submissions will be considered by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) at its 15...

The Conference of the Parties, at its seventeenth session, invited Parties and admitted observer organizations to submit to the secretariat, by 5 March 2012, their views on the matters referred to in paragraphs 83 and 84 of decision 2/CP.17, including their experiences, positive and negative, with existing approaches and mechanisms as well as lessons learned (decision 2/CP.17, para. 85).

The secretariat has received 12 such submissions from Parties. 

The Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the country’s certification system on timber would comply with a new regulation to be imposed by the European Union next year. 

The certification system would enable the country’s timber companies to gain global recognition, Suryo Bambang Sulistyo, chairman of the group known as Kadin, said on Wednesday. 

The European Union plans to impose a new timber regulation in March next year aimed at curbing...

The European Union will not allow any timber products originating from illegal sources to enter its markets once new timber legislation comes into force next year. 

Chargé Affaires of the EU Delegation to Laos Mr Michel Goffin made this clear to Vientiane Times during a visit yesterday to Burapha Agro Forestry Co., Ltd (BAFCO) in Saen-oudom village, Xaythany district, Vientiane.

According to EU sources, the EU has provided 6 million euros to support...

China is looking at ways to include forest carbon projects in its planned emissions trading scheme (ETS), according to a senior official, a move which would boost supply of lower-cost offsets for the country’s biggest emitters. 

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The representatives of 43 European countries – the 27 EU member states plus the European Commission, Russia and other non-EU European countries – have begun negotiating a legally binding agreement on sustainable forest management in Europe. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) is holding its first round of talks from 27 February to 2 March in Vienna. It will put together a draft framework agreement that will be examined no later than 2013 by an extraordinary ministerial...