The International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), which came into force on 1 April 1985, aims to improve monitoring of the tropical timber trade and also to encourage the conservation of tropical forest resources. ITTA should become an important force in tropical torest conservation bringing together environmental and trade interests. The agreement may provide an international framework for monitoring trade in rare timbers. It is important at this stage to sustain the conservation momentum of the Agreement and in order to do so accurate factual information is needed to support conservation initiatives.

This paper is based on a feasibility study, carried out for the lUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre, on the monitoring of rare tropical timber species in international trade.

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