18 December 2009: The Governments of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain took part in a ceremony on 18 December 2009, at UN Headquarters in New York, US, to indicate their support for the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 2006 (ITTA, 2006).
The Agreement was adopted in 2006 to serve as a successor to the previous Agreement, ITTA, 1994, but has yet to enter into force pending ratification of the Agreement by a certain proportion of major exporting and importing countries. The Agreement aims to improve the management of forests in tropical countries by, inter alia, promoting tropical timber and timber product exports from sustainably managed sources. ITTA, 2006 also establishes five thematic progammes, including one on enhancing environmental services in tropical forests by reducing deforestation and forest degradation. [UN Press Release]