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Helveta

17 May 2010

Helveta secures £5m investment in funding to support its rapid expansion in global forest and food sectors

London, United Kingdom, May 17 2010: Helveta Ltd, the provider of supply chain intelligence software, CI World™, announced today completion of a £5m equity financing. The round was led by BeCapital, with Carbon Trust joining as a new investor and continued support coming from existing investors Albion Ventures, Oxford Capital Partners and Succès Europe.

The investment underpins Helveta’s rapid expansion in its key geographic markets worldwide. Helveta’s CI World supply chain intelligence functionality enables public and private sector users in the forest and food products industries to provide full traceability and compliance verification capability for assets moving along global supply chains. In the forestry sector CI World is the only proven technology to provide automated Chain of Custody (CoC) management, Legality Assurance System (LAS) functionality and pro-active compliance with new US Lacey Act and European Union Due Diligence Regulation timber import legislation.

CI World is being used to monitor in excess of 2.7m hectares of forest across the Congo and Amazon basins and in South East Asia. Recent major contract wins include national timber traceability and compliance validation systems in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon. Once deployed,
these systems will increase significantly the total forest area monitored using Helveta technology. CI World is rapidly becoming the supply chain governance software platform of choice with countries becoming involved in the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) process. Recently Ghana became the first country to sign up to treaty commitments under FLEGT. As a result the Ghanaian government has selected Helveta to implement a Legality Assurance System for its timber sector.

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28th January 2010

Helveta announces contract to deploy CI World as the nationwide forest information management system in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Helveta Ltd., the leading provider of asset management and supply chain monitoring technology for the forest sector, has announced an exclusive 5 year supply agreement with Société Générale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS), to supply the Ministry of Environment, Conservation of Nature and Tourism (MECNT) for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with the software technology platform and support services to manage the entire supply chain of wood and wood products in the largest tropical forest in Africa.

The project will utilise Helveta’s CI World™ technology to map, record inventory, and track & trace wood produced from the Congolese forestry sector, from the standing tree in the forest, through wood processing plants, and finally to the nation’s export gates and local wholesale markets. CI World will be the software engine of the forest management platform, which through SGS turnkey project management will afford the MECNT visibility and control for the DRC’s national timber production. The project will strengthen timber supply chain control and revenue collection from the Congolese timber sector.

The DRC is home to the world’s second largest tropical rainforest, representing 80% of Africa’s rainforest cover. At more than 130 million hectares, these forests are disappearing at a rate of 0.6% per year.* The DRC’s valuable tropical forests are an essential source of revenue for a nation still recovering from years of civil war. As is the case in many tropical timber producing nations, illegal logging is a significant threat to the sustainable development of the sector as well as to the hard currency revenues critical to the DRC’s economic recovery. The government of the DRC, through the MECNT, is moving to improve its forest management activities. The national forest management project will ensure that the sector develops with a robust timber legality assurance system and will equip the DRC to meet the requirements of international agreements, such as the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT), to prevent illegal logging and the associated trade in illegal timber products.

Helveta Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Newton, commented: “We are pleased to be working with SGS and the MECNT to further expand our footprint across Africa. This project in DRC represents the eighth African nation to deploy Helveta technology and will help the DRC improve its forest sector management activities by ensuring legal compliance in timber production. More importantly, it will allow our clients to demonstrate CI World’s merits as a ‘fit-for-purpose’ software platform providing legality assurance support for countries engaged in or about to engage in the VPA process.”

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17th July 2009

Helveta awarded contract for first National Wood Tracking System under FLEGT as Ghana takes
steps to combat illegal logging

International software provider Helveta, has announced today that it has been selected to install its CI WorldTM platform as a NationalWood Tracking System by the Forestry Commission of Ghana (FCG). This represents the first contract of its kind awarded under the European Union’s (EU’s) Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, and signals a significant change in fortunes for the Ghananian timber industry.

The EU accounted for almost 43% of all wood products exported from Ghana in 2008. Following the introduction of the FLEGT initiative, which aims to develop and implement measures to address illegal logging and related trade, Ghana concluded negotiations of the first ever Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) in September 2008. The project awarded to Helveta is the first worldwide to support the legality assurance requirements of a concluded VPA process and to facilitate issuance of FLEGT licensed timber destined for export in Europe.

The implementation of the National Wood Tracking System will consist of two phases, the first being an 18 month deployment of Helveta’s technology in four specially selected supply chains, representing a cross section of the Ghanaian timber industry. It will deliver a fully integrated wood tracking system monitoring timber flows from the standing tree in the forest, through primary and secondary processing activities to the point of export, so that the origin and legality of the timber can be determined. Helveta’s CI World technology will be used to gather standing tree inventory information and monitor timber moving through the supply chain.

The new system will see the use of barcode tags on trees and logs and data being recorded using Hand Held computers equipped with barcode scanners and GPS receivers and data transfer via internet connected PCs in FCG offices and also over the Ghana cellular phone network using GPRS. It will replace the current paper-based system used by FCG inspectors and integrate with FCG finance systems to improve collection of royalties and duties associated with the timber industry by the Government of Ghana.

When the processed timber reaches the harbour from which it will be exported, CI World will report on the history of the shipment, reconciling the consignment with the location of the original tree or trees which were cut to produce it. This report will be used to ensure that a Certificate of Legal Origin can be granted for each consignment of wood.

Phase two of the project will see Helveta and the FCG rolling the system out nationally throughout the entire Ghanaian timber industry. This will facilitate the issuance of FLEGT licences for Ghanaian wood being exported to the European Union.

Patrick Newton, CEO of Helveta commented “Ghana is the first country to have concluded a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the European Community; and the implementation of a national wood tracking system to support commitments made under this Agreement is a significant step forward for the Ghanaian timber industry and for the success of the FLEGT process overall. We look forward to helping Ghanaian exporters provide FLEGT licensed timber to buyers in the EU as these buyers seek to comply with a need for verifiable due diligence under the EU’s planned Framework Regulation for illegal logging. Our end-to-end traceability solution significantly enhances risk mitigation for timber purchasers within the EU and the US – a key need for Executive Management as current and impending civil and criminal liabilities are now a significant feature of the timber supply chain on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Tony Lee, Business Development Manager at Helveta commented “The system we are implementing in Ghana will see forest mapping, tracking and tracing of timber across the supply chain and improvements to the process of royalty collections for timber in Ghana. This deployment builds on the success and flexibility of Helveta’s platform in supporting intergovernmental technology initiatives designed to provide forest products traceability. This project will help consolidate forest laws and strengthen regulation to ensure legal compliance in all timber production. More importantly, it will allow us to demonstrate CI World’s merits as a ‘fit-for-purpose’ software platform providing legality assurance support for countries engaged in the VPA process. ”

Fredua Agyeman, Technical Director (Forestry) at the Ghana Ministry of Lands & Natural Resources commented: “The Helveta system will help us to identify all wood that is harvested from the forest through processing to Marketing centres, whether local or to export. Once we’ve given out the yield we should be able to know that what we give out is what is actually going through the system. That is one of the unique advantages of this system and why the Government of Ghana is very keen in getting this agreement signed as early as possible and today I’m happy that it has been done.”

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10th July 2009

British company barcodes trees to protect forests

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - Deep in the world's tropical rainforests, workers are hammering thousands of barcodes into hardwood trees to help in the fight against illegal logging, corruption and global warming. The plastic tags, like those on supermarket groceries, have been nailed to a million trees across Africa, southeast Asia and South America to help countries keep track of timber reserves.

Helveta, the British company behind the technology, says the barcodes will help firms comply with tough laws on importing sustainable timber into the United States and Europe. They could also play a role in fighting deforestation, which accounts for about a fifth of global emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide. The issue will feature in global climate talks in Copenhagen in December. "We bring transparency and visibility where historically that has probably been limited at best," Patrick Newton, Helveta's chief executive officer, told Reuters. The company, which has just secured another 3 million pounds ($4.88 million) in funding from investors (including Albion Ventures LLP), has put barcodes on trees across the world, including in Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia and Peru.

The computerized system is less prone to fraud than traditional paper records, carries live data and can help governments to collect more timber taxes, Newton said. While the barcodes can't prevent criminals from chopping down trees, the system makes it hard for them to process, sell or export the wood, Newton said. Officials in remote forests use handheld computers to scan the tags from the moment a tree is felled to its processing and export, and the live data is put onto Helveta's secure database. Every tree above a certain size in a plantation is given an individual barcode. When a tree is cut down, another barcode is attached to the stump and more tags are nailed to the processed wood to allow customs officials to audit exports at the docks.

Government officials and companies can track individual trees through the supply chain and view computerized maps of forests on the database. Timber leaving a forest or factory without tags will immediately be viewed as illegal, Newton said.

DOUBLE IMPACT
Illegal logging costs timber-producing countries 7 billion euros ($10 billion) a year in stolen wood, lost taxes and lower prices for legally-sourced products, the World Bank estimates. It also takes an environmental toll. Damage to forests raises the risk of fires, flooding and damage to plants and trees that act as a "sink" to soak up carbon dioxide, Britain's Meteorological Office said in a report last year.

Helveta hopes its technology could help countries taking part in a proposed scheme to protect the world's forests as part of the fight against global warming. That is likely to form part of any global climate deal agreed in Copenhagen in December. The scheme, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), aims to increase forest cover to soak up carbon dioxide emissions blamed for rising seas, extreme weather and melting glaciers. It may include a market-based element where traders buy and sell REDD credits from forestry projects that lock away carbon.

However, trading based on the number of trees in a forest needs close auditing if the market is to work, Helveta says.

"The problem with forests is that it is very hard to validate what is truly out there," Newton said. "If you are trying to back that asset...you need to be able to make sure that what you think is securitized is really there."

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

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1st July 2009

Helveta’s timber track and trace technology receives £3m investment

Oxford, United Kingdom 21 June 09: Helveta Limited, the leading provider of global timber track and trace technology today announced that it has raised £3m in a new funding round. French technology investor Succés Europe led the round to completion, supported by existing investors Albion Ventures and Oxford Capital Partners. The investment will finance the continued international growth and expansion of the company.

In the tropical timber industry, a key concern is ensuring that only timber from legal and sustainable sources reaches the market. Illegal logging costs the Governments of timber-producing states between 10 and 15 billion Euros a year in the form of theft, non-collection of forest taxes and depressed timber prices. Illegal logging also increases the rate of deforestation, which is the second biggest driver of climate change, accounting for 18 – 25% of greenhouse gases released globally. The scale of the problem has led to legislation in both the US and EU aimed at putting measures in place to verify the legality of timber, and technology such as that delivered by Helveta is playing a pivotal role in projects across Africa, SE Asia and the Amazon basin.

Helveta’s unique technology is focused on the timber sectors. It enables customers to trace assets through the supply chain, providing traceability and verification. Production is monitored using Helveta’s mobile device-based software applications – CI Mobile™ - and barcode or RFID reader technologies, which in turn link into Helveta’s web-based suite of tools and reports – CI World™. Helveta has extended its capability to the food storage and distribution sector, providing valuable information on the origin of food produce.

“Helveta is the only technology solution for timber and food supply chains capable of delivering global traceability and remotely verifiable regulatory compliance data over the web. We are pleased that our continued expansion has received investment from Succés Europe, as well as continued support from Oxford Capital Partners and Albion Ventures,” said Helveta CEO Patrick Newton. “This investment is an endorsement of the progress we’ve made in supporting real change within the industry, and comes as we are poised to announce a number of new contracts in key timber producing nations.”

“Succés Europe is delighted to be making its first investment in Helveta, and we have been struck by the company’s unique opportunity for growth within the current climate. The Company has strong management and a solid pipeline of opportunities and we look forward to working with the board and our co-investors to build on the Helveta success story.” commented Mario Anid, Director and Investment Committee President at Succés Europe.

“Helveta has made encouraging progress since we last invested in 2008, winning a number of highly significant contracts and playing a strategic role in helping countries comply with the requirements of the EU’s Forestry Law Enforcement, Government and Trade (FLEGT) process,” commented Ed Lascelles, Partner at Albion Ventures. “As the only working, electronic traceability system in the timber sector Helveta is uniquely placed to become the industry standard.”

“As a company that is enjoying global success, we are proud to continue supporting Helveta as it builds on five years of solid achievements to become global leader in the timber tracking sector,” said David Mott, Investment Director at Oxford Capital Partners. “The tougher legislative environment, coupled with the growing ambition of timber producing countries for recovering lost revenues and for enhancing social responsibility, makes us confident that Helveta is well placed to become a prominent ambassador for the sustainable management of forests. Think of it as the ‘FAIRTRADE’ Mark for the global timber industry.”

Helveta was advised in this funding round by FirstCapital. Legal advisers were Justin Starling of Manches; Miranda Morad of Berwin Leighton Paisner acting for Succés Europe and Albion Ventures LLP; and Barry Maytum of Nabarros advised Oxford Capital Partners.

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March 2008

SGS and Helveta announce agreements for a nationwide forest and timber chain-of-custody monitoring system in the Republic of Liberia

SGS Société Générale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS) announced today the signature of a 5-year contract with the Forest Development Authority (FDA) of Liberia for the management of a nationwide system to monitor and verify forest logging and timber chain-of-custody across the territory of Liberia. Concurrently, Helveta Ltd. announced an exclusive supply agreement with SGS to supply the FDA with the technology and support services to manage the entire supply chain of wood and wood products in the West African timber producing nation. The project will utilize Helveta’s CI World™ technology to track 100% of the wood produced from the Liberian forestry sector, from the standing tree in the forest, through wood processing plants, and finally to the nation’s export gates and local wholesale markets.

SGS, as the prime contractor to the FDA, will provide overall project management leadership, turnkey operations support, and capacity building to the institution for the project. Helveta, through its CI World™ supply chain management solution, will provide database technology, software applications, and hardware components to operate the end-to-end traceability system. CI World will be used as the engine of the Chain of Custody Information (COCIS), which will afford the FDA back to stump traceability for all timber products as well as data validation and integration with the government regulatory reporting framework. In this way, CI World will enable comprehensive timber supply chain control and revenue collection from the Liberian timber sector.

Liberia’s valuable tropical forests are an essential source of revenue for a nation still recovering from years of civil war. As is the case in many tropical timber producing nations, illegal logging is a significant threat to the sustainable development of the sector as well as to the hard currency revenues critical to Liberia’s economic recovery. The COCIS will ensure that the sector develops with a robust timber legality assurance system and will equip Liberia to meet the requirements of international agreements to prevent illegal logging and the associated trade in illegal timber products.

The project was made possible by seed funding provided by the US Government and was developed under the technical guidance of the US Forest Service. The seed funding will be used to support the nationwide implementation of the systems. Once the COCIS project is operational, the project will become self-financing through ongoing and improved forest and export tax collection, with the ultimate objective of handing over the national system and management capacity to the FDA under a Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) model.

John T. Woods, Managing Director of the Liberian Forest Development Authority, observed: “the Liberian forest sector is a critical asset for the country’s economic development and this project will enable the FDA to effectively manage the use of those resources while controlling illegal logging. The combination of SGS project management expertise and Helveta technology will provide Liberia with the support required to restart its timber industry in an efficient, legal, and sustainable manner.”

Thomas Pichet, SGS Project Manager in Liberia added: “the Chain of Custody Information System is unique in that it allows multiple stakeholders to have access to critical forest information, while empowering the FDA to manage the sector considering their long term objectives as well as their near term needs. SGS is proud to be involved in a project that will make a significant contribution to Liberia’s economic recovery while developing the infrastructure and capacity to ensure the long term viability of the sector.”

Helveta CEO, Patrick Newton, commented: “The Liberia project is a cornerstone of our broader regional strategy to bring leading edge technology solutions to empower West African and Congo Basin timber producing nations to effectively manage their forest resources and provide the legally and sustainably produced products required in today’s markets. This is particularly relevant as a number of African timber producing nations advance in the Voluntary Partnership Agreement negotiations as part of the EU FLEGT process.”

About SGS
Established in 1878, with Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, SGS is the world’s largest inspection, verification and testing company. With branches in 140 countries and 50’000 staff, SGS provides services to the agriculture, mineral, petroleum, quality assurance, industrial, environmental and consumer sectors as well as services to Governments through its Governments and Institutions Services Division. SGS has no trading or manufacturing interests and its Services are based on impartiality, independence and integrity. www.sgs.com

About Helveta
Helveta was incorporated in 2004 and is the developer of the CI World™ software platform. CI World is a unique technology providing fully auditable traceability and chain of custody control for extended supply chains in the Timber and Food production sectors. CI World and its components – TracElite™ and CI Earth™ - have won a number of awards as innovative technologies for the timber sector. Helveta is privately held. www.helveta.com

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October 2006

Close Ventures leads funding of Helveta’s timber traceability technology

Close Ventures is pleased to announce that it has invested £1.4 million in Helveta Limited (the “Company”), creator of the TracElite timber traceability solution. Close led a £2 million funding round, with the balance provided by existing investors Oxford Capital Partners and a number of private investors. This new finance will be used to take on additional staff as well as to fund the working capital requirements of the Company during this growth phase.

Helveta’s technology is primarily aimed at the timber industry, and enables customers to trace timber throughout the supply chain. Production of timber is monitored using a tag-based system and handheld computers using barcode or RFID reader technologies, which in turn link into a web-based suite of tools and reports.

A key concern in the tropical timber industry is ensuring that only timber from legal and sustainable sources reaches the market. Governments, retailers, environmental organisations, importers, sawmills and timber concession operators all have an interest in using technology-based traceability systems to restrict the market to timber felled from legal and sustainable sources. With the active support of the Tropical Forest Trust, the company developed TracElite to combat illegal logging, provide back-to-stump traceability and deliver online Chain of Custody audits replacing paper based approaches.

Aside from traceability, Helveta’s technology also provides customers with real time visibility and optimisation of timber production, resulting in greatly increased efficiency in the forest or in the factory. This capability provides benefits to other industries, and the Company is currently also running a series of projects for customers in the food industry.

Helveta’s technology platform is live and in use with customers in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. Helveta’s operations are based out of Oxford, UK.

“We welcome the support of the highly respected Close Ventures team alongside continued support from Oxford Capital Partners,” said Helveta CEO Patrick Newton “this investment allows us to extend our customer support in the field and push on with our expansion in international markets. Our product is well tested across the supply chain and brings numerous benefits both economic and ecological.”

“We are excited to support this market-leading technology and excellent management team. There is a clear and increasing need for improved traceability in the timber industry, and Helveta’s TracElite system has the potential to become the de facto global standard in this sector,” said Ed Lascelles, Investment Manager at Close Ventures.

“Having supported the company since 2004, Oxford Capital Partners is delighted that, with this funding round, Helveta is in a position to roll-out TracElite internationally and build a winning business globally”, said Dr Victor Christou, Investment Manager at Oxford Capital Partners.

Helveta was advised by Martin Fiennes of Clarity Capital Partners; legal advisers were Phil Riman of Darbys, Oxford who acted for the company, Ian Ivory of Berwin Leighton Paisner acting for Close Ventures and Roger Gregory of Nabarro Nathanson, acting for Oxford Capital Partners.

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Helveta technology supporting responsible Indonesia/USA forest trade

Oxford, United Kingdom, 6th October, 2008: Helveta Ltd. announced today the commencement of a project to monitor timber flows from Indonesia to markets in the United States of America. The project utilizes Helveta’s CI WorldTM technology to track timber flows in Indonesia from the standing tree in the forest, through wood processing plant and export to clients in the US. The project forms part of an overall Verification of Legal Origin (VLO) project that the Tropical Forest Trust (TFT) is implementing for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) under the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) initiative. Through the VLO project, TFT is working with a number of forest and factory enterprises to guide them towards meeting Smartwood’s Standard for Verifying Legal Origin. Once the enterprises are prepared, Smartwood, as independent auditors, will be requested to conduct 3rd party assessments.

The project will demonstrate linkages between businesses in Indonesia and the US and provide tangible verification to both timber producers and consumers that the products in question are of legal origin. Moreover the proposal supports the US-Indonesian MOU to combat illegal logging and associated trade. US Trade Representative Office funding has been channelled through the USAID Regional Development Mission-Asia based in Bangkok to the RAFT Program, who has made it available to support legal verification activities in Indonesia.

Helveta will deploy an information system overlay to the existing traceability processes TFT has worked to establish within a specific Indonesian supply chain. Through the deployment, Helveta, TFT and local partners will demonstrate how this solution can provide additional evidence to ensure the origin of legally verified wood products.

Helveta’s involvement in the project will encompass operations in a community forest in a district of Southern Central Java, where Mahogany is harvested by a local cooperative in order to generate revenues that are extremely important to the livelihood of the villagers. Guided by existing processes and Indonesian forestry law, Helveta will provide monitoring of the supply chain related to the community forest to assist in the daily operations of extraction and transportation of mahogany logs, thus insuring traceability and transparency for supply chain partners and auditors. Wood is transported from the community forests to a sawmill and after inspection, logs are manually transferred to a separate area of the facility where sawmill workers process the logs into sawn timber. Once the sawn timber is produced, it is stacked and stored in the sawmill’s warehouse. After drying, sawn timber is then issued to a sub-contractor hired by the mill to manufacture components. From there, components are passed on to craftsmen that assemble them into finished goods. In the case of the community forest raw material, all sawn timber is transformed into a single model of chairs for export to a retail operation in the United States.

Helveta’s CI WorldTM asset tracking and supply chain management solution will be used to monitor the movement of wood through the supply chain, observing all changes in the asset status from tree to log, log to sawn timber, sawn timber to components, and components to finished product and consistently reconcile data gathered between each of the control points, checking for errors and issuing intelligent alerts notifying users to investigate and correct any discrepancies detected.

Ben Jarvis, from The Nature Conservancy commented:
“With the recent passing of the Lacey Act in the USA and increasing demands for corporate social responsibility, US businesses will increasingly need to take charge of their wood supply chains and prove, at a minimum, that they are procuring wood from legal origins. This pilot between Indonesian and US businesses is an exciting opportunity for RAFT, in partnership with The Tropical Forest Trust and Helveta Ltd, to demonstrate some of the options available to the private sector to meet Lacey Act requirements, increase demand for wood products from verified legal origin, and provide traceability and tailored visibility on such wood supply chains. A successful pilot could have a significant impact on the future trade in tropical hardwood products destined for the US market.”

Martin de la Serna, Helveta’s Vice President of Sales & Marketing remarked:
“This is an important initiative to demonstrate how end to end supply chain control can demonstrate verified legal origin for timber products. Through passage of the Lacey Act Amendment, the United States set a framework for enforcement of legality requirements for timber imports. Thus the RAFT pilot is very timely and highly relevant given the growing requirement for verified legal origin timber in not only the US but other global timber markets. Helveta is pleased to support The Nature Conservancy and The Tropical Forest Trust in the implementation of this project.”

About the Responsible Asia Forestry & Trade [RAFT] program:
The RAFT program was developed by TNC together with USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia (RDMA) and key implementation partners including WWF, Tropical Forest Trust (TFT), Tropical Forest Foundation (TFF) and Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC). RAFT focuses on promoting responsible timber trade and sustainable management of forest resources and biodiversity at a regional scale. It accomplishes this through partnerships involving nongovernmental environmental organizations, private sector companies, government agencies and multilateral organizations working in six target countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Papua New Guinea – and their key trading partners. The initiative aims to increase regional timber trade from legal sources, improve the sustainability of forest management on the ground, strengthen regional cooperation on forest management and trade and contribute towards climate change abatement by reducing CO2 emissions from forest loss and degradation and enhancing regional capacity for sustainable forest management through the emerging international REDD framework.

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