Goho(=Legal) Wood NAVI

Since April 2006, the Government of Japan has started to implement measures to promote the purchase of wood and wood products verified for their legality and sustainability in order to address the global issue of illegal logging and to encourage the procurement of environmental friendly products. As a part of this measure, the Forestry Agency of Japan developed “a guideline for the vertification of legality and sustainability of wood and wood products” in February 2006, and announced it to the world and Japan, while promoting the development of a supply system based on this guideline. In order to encourage and disseminate the use of wood products vertified for their legality and sustainability, the Japan Federation of the Wood Industry Association is hosting the captioned seminar from December 3 to 4, 2007, as a part of its project to promote comprehensive measures to tackle illegal logging. (Please refer to the Working seminar implementation plan for details.) The Federation would like to invite relevant personnel to make a presentation under the theme “Verification system of legality and sustainability of wood and wood products by exporting countries” of the seminar program, and would appreciate your applications.

1. Eligible individuals
Any personnel responsibel for the construction of verification system, or any other appropriate personnel sutable to explain the verification system, at verification-issuing organizations/exporters who issue or are preparing to issue verification on the legality or sustainability of export timber in line with the Japanese guidelines or at organizations guaranteeing the reliability of the verification in countries or regions exporting timber to Japan.

2. Outline of the report presentation

(1) Forest management of the related region and Japan’s procurement policy
Outline of the forest law enforcement and governance in the region and and a general evaluation of the current situation in forest management / Evaluation of Japan’s Green Purchasing Law and the Guideline, and their impacts on the forest management in the related region

(2) Japan’s Guideline and its relation to the certificates
The items vertified by the vertification / mechanisms to check the legality at the time of the logging / mecanisms to check sustainability / mechanisms for separation management

(3) Future challenges
Problems in the current vertification system and the issues to be inpruved in the future

3. Participation in the Seminar
Presenters are, in principle, requested to participate in the Seminar and provide their presentation either orally or in the form of poster sessions.

4. Invitation schedule

September 30, 2007 Closing day for applications
(Use the attached application form(Appendix1), write a brief profile of the presenter and the outline of the report on the verification system, and submit it to the Secretariat).

The middle of October, 2007 Determination of the Program
(The result of application review to be announced)

The beginning of November, 2007 Closing day for the submission of presentation outline
(Appendix2)

The middle of November, 2007 Closing day for the submission of presentation data December 3 and 4, 2007 Seminars to be held

5. Treatment of reports submitted
After the review, the reports will be distributed as seminar materials. In addition, the reports will be published as a part of the seminar report and presented on the legal logging page of the Council for Tackling Illegal Logging Issue’s web site (http://goho-wood.jp/), along with the outline of discussions during the Seminar.