ABSTRACT
The central dispute concerned the scope of a renegotiated ITTA, with disagreement focusing on whether or not the agreement should cover all timbers. A common concern of the producers and the NGOs was that there should be no trade discrimination between tropical and nontropical timbers. While the producer countries received support from the NGO community, the consumers were backed by the timber trade organizations, which also favoured a remit covering only tropical timber. The Malaysian Minister for Primary Industries cited research by WWF-International showing that temperate deforestation was increasing, and called upon NGOs to focus further on temperate forest destruction. The ITTC's fourteenth session was marred by a physical assault by the Sarawak director of forests on the executive director of WWF-Malaysia, which ended with the latter falling into the swimming pool of the hotel where the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) session was being staged.
