These Guidelines update and replace the original version of the ITTO Guidelines for the Sustainable Management of Natural Tropical Forests, published in 1990 as the first ITTO policy document relating to the management of the natural tropical forest domain. In 2007, the International Tropical Timber Council decided to update these guidelines 1 in response to advances in knowledge and the emergence of a wide range of new issues and opportunities for tropical forest management.
International policies concerning tropical forests and forest management have seen significant developments since 1990. These include the adoption in 1993 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1996, the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1996, the decision of the UNFCCC “Cancun” on REDD+ 2 in 2010, and the 2007 agreement relating to the legally binding instrument non-binding on all types of forests (NLBI; United Nations General Assembly Resolution 62/98), which includes four agreed goals at the global level on forests. There has also been a general shift in tropical forest management from focusing on wood production to multi-purpose approaches that place increasing emphasis on forest services. Box 1 summarizes a number of developments that have marked the management of natural tropical forests since 1990.