(International symposium 2010 day 2 greetings from Chairman Okuma)

Efforts to Supply Legality Verified Woodand Significance of this International Symposium
Motoaki Okuma, Chairman,
Council for Tackling Illegal Logging and Promotion of Goho-woodThank you for the introduction.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining this second day of
our international symposium program, from the early morning. Our second
day program focuses on countermeasures to illegal logging, centered onJapan’s efforts for certification of goho-wood, or legality verified wood. Fiveyears have passed since the Japanese government decided to purchaselegality verified wood products on a preferential basis and the wood industry
began working to supply them. This is also our fifth international
symposium.
For a brief history of the symposium, please refer to the distributed material.
The first international seminar took place in February 2007. In 2008, we
held the Roundtable Meeting on Goho-wood toward the G8 Summit,“Discussions with Members of GLOBE International on Future Measures fora Legal Wood Supply System.”Feb. 2007 International Seminar in Tokyo for Tackling Illegal Logging, 2007:
Response of the World to the Procurement Policies of Japan
Dec. 2007 International Seminar for Tackling Illegal Logging, 2007 II inYokohama: A Credible and Distributable System for Verifying Goho(=legal) wood and Wood Products
June 2008 Roundtable Meeting on Goho-wood for the G8 Summit:
Discussions with Members of GLOBE International on Future Measures
for a Legal Wood Supply System
Dec. 2009 The 2009 Symposium on the Promotion of Wood and Wood
Products with Verified Legality: Goho-wood Efforts to Address the Illegal
Logging Problem1

We have held these international symposiums consistently maintaining astance toward expanding imports of legality-verified wood based on theForestry Agency guidelines, and thus contributing to the illegal logging
countermeasures of each country.
Through these efforts, I think that the Japanese approach has gained someposition within the international activities. This is shown by the acceptanceof the term “goho-wood” with the key concept of being widely applicable.
Wood and wood products pass through complex processing and distribution
routes, and it is not possible to efficiently check all products at several
processing locations. Thus Chain of Custody (CoC) systems become necessary.
These certify businesses engaged in processing and distribution, and entrustthem with providing information on legality and sustainability.
The FSC, PEFC, SGEC, and other forest certification bodies have designed
frameworks to guarantee the credibility of certified businesses using
third-party inspections. However, having an industry body provide CoC
certification is original to the Forestry Agency guidelines. We think this isvery important from the standpoint of being widely applicable and efficient.
Our intention is to express the universality and importance of this approachby using the term “goho-wood.” The participants at the Roundtable Meetingwith members of GLOBE International kindly understood this term. We
hope you will give further consideration to Japan’s legality verified wood
supply system.
This year’s symposium is also significant in that it is being held at a criticaltime when the demand for goho-wood is expanding in the Japanese market.
Moreover, the act to promote the use of wood in public buildings came into
effect from this autumn, and I think that is also an important factor. I would
like you to note how goho-wood procurement has gone beyond thegovernment, and is now also expanding in the private sector.
Another characteristic is the establishment of countermeasures to illegal2

logging as policies in the United States and Europe as consumption countries.
Those will also be introduced here today.
I hope we can examine the illegal logging problem and our future approaches
at this symposium, amid the international developments. I look forward to
your enthusiastic participation throughout today’s program, to make this asuccessful symposium.
Thank you very much for your attention.

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