countries namely: Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, the host country.

The meeting aimed among other things to share and discuss experiences and lessons learned from developing and implementing legal wood procurement policies in the respective countries, and share ways of further promoting legally sourced wood and its by-products.

The deliberations were chaired by the Ivorian Minister of Water and Forests, Alain Richard Donwahi who in his opening speech underscored the need for States to ensure that wood used to execute public contracts is derived from legal sources.

Aware of the social, environmental and economic costs associated with deforestation and land degradation and in a bid to efficiently address these issues, the African countries taking part in the meeting defined a host of measures and reforms that would help to preserve and restore forests for the well-being of their inhabitants. However, certain factors continue to pose a threat to the forest cover of African countries. They include extensive agriculture, unbridled logging to meet demand for timber and fuel wood, illegal mining, urbanization and failure to enforce forest conservation legislation on the ground

Learn more...