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2019 First report Congo Basin Community.pdf

Dear members of the FSC Congo Basin Community. This is our first report of the activities that have been developed on the action points that were identified at the FSC Congo Basin Business Encounter June 2018 in Libreville. We intend to inform you regularly and invite you to participate in the processes with your own expertise.

Convince Asian Businesses of the validity of certification ( Action point4)

This point was among other things raised because of the unique situation in Gabon where there are considerable hectares of FSC certified forests, European operators and an increasing number of Asian operators. It seems to be a good basis to have an open-minded discussion about the advantages of responsible forest management connected to FSC COC certification. The first contacts with particularly Chinese entities are very promising. There is great interest in certification of forest management (and the following COC certification), in the European approach and market developments. They express the willingness to have more understanding of how the FSC system works. One of the main concerns is the matter of scale. The demand in wood products especially in China is already huge and still growing. The existing areas of global tropical forests are not able to produce enough volumes to supply. Our Chinese counterparts have made the same analysis. So far the Chinese Government does not have a specific policy in place to ensure the legal/responsible sources of timber entering into China. Chinese timber associations seem to be willing to have a dialogue with FSC China and WWF China. FSC Congo Basin will facilitate that.

On the 16th of January the first LKTS Congo basin (LKTSCB) meeting was held in Utrecht, the Netherlands. As discussed during the Libreville meeting the approach is to introduce Lesser Known Timber Species on the main Western European markets; Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and UK. The concept is that after the selection of timber species by the experts of the LKTSCB, the introduction and promotion will be a joint effort. In first instance by the members of the working group, but soon supported by all members of the Congo Basin Business Encounter community. The working group has identified 7 species related to the same number of market-segments. The species will be further investigated, judged and evaluated by the working group. As soon as a species is approved by the working group the introduction phase will take off. In this phase the promotion and marketing experts within LKTSCB will develop a concept, timetable and connect to the whole community in order to make promotion as effective as possible .

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