The Expert Consultation on Trade and Sustainable Forest Management: Impacts and Interaction convened at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy from 3-5 February 2003.

Bringing together 73 participants from 26 countries, representing government, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector, the Expert Consultation provided a forum to debate how current developments in trade policies and market development affect the sustainability of forest management, and how sustainable forest management (SFM) is changing trade patterns and market share. The Expert Consultation meeting constitutes one of the activities within the FAO’s international project on the Impact Assessment of Forest Products Trade in the Promotion of Sustainable Forest Management. The project is financed by the Japanese government. FAO will publish the results of this process and convene a second expert consultation meeting later this year that will include trade policy-makers and trade specialists involved in debates on a new International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), the implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Declaration, regional trade agreements and national trade policy making. During the meeting’s concluding session, Co-Chair Killmann responded to comments on a draft copy of the Expert Consultation’s Summary Report, saying that a meeting of the project’s advisory group will decide how best to incorporate the expert consultation’s inputs into its future activities. The Sustainable Developments report outlining these discussions in detail can be found at: http://enb.iisd.org/linkages/sd/tsfm/