The International Conference on Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests: Private Sector Experiences, a joint initiative of the Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), convened from 13-15 April 2004 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Attended by approximately 150 representatives from logging companies, community organizations, governments and NGOs, the conference reviewed private-sector experiences in sustainable forest management (SFM) in the tropics and discussed ways that success stories could be expanded to other companies and community groups. The conference was the culmination of a three-year ITTO-funded project searching for private-sector success stories in the three tropical regions of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The project sent questionnaires to 1766 concession-holders and other timber-harvesting entities to gauge their awareness of, commitment to and success in implementing SFM, from which 206 responses were received and compiled at the regional level. Fourteen detailed case-studies were also developed to closely examine efforts by companies towards SFM and identify the conditions that enable and constrain such efforts at the local level.
Among the obstacles to SFM identified by companies were: decreasing donor contributions to SFM; illegal logging and illegal trade of timber products; unnecessary bureaucratic procedures, such as overlapping regulations between state, federal and other government levels; corruption; and the generally short-term nature of timber concessions. Regional summaries and the 14 case studies will be published later this year. For more information, see the ITTO press release http://www.itto.or.jp/live/PageDisplayHandler?pageId=217&id=689