Implementation of the Pact for Legal Timber and Forest Governance in Colombia / MINAMBIENTE AND CARDER SIGN AGREEMENT FOR OVER 499 MILLION PESOS

Bogota, March 22, 2013. - The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and CARDER, as an entity that represents the project positioning of forest governance in Colombia, today signed an agreement for $ 499,479,843 in Bogota

The agreement aims to work together to develop actions related to the implementation of the Pact for Legal Timber and Forest Governance in Colombia.

Of the $ 499,479,843, of which the sum of MADS provides $ 430,709,000 (approximately 185,000 euros)

The Director of the Corporation, Juan Manuel Alvarez Villegas said "This agreement will allow us to execute eleven CAR Project actively participate in the process of implementing the Pact for Legal Timber in Colombia, Departmental Agreements, and advance System development to Legality Assurance Forest, since the process of issuance and consultation online Safe Conduct National Single - SUN is a very important aspect; CORANTIOQUIA this topic has shown interest to work online the SUN ".

The scope of it are:

·Validate and adopt the conceptualization of legal timber, and the methodology for the measurement of illegal timber in Colombia.

·Promotion of the Pact for Legal Timber in sectors and more users demand this product.

·lead the implementation of the Pact for Legal Timber.

·issue, socialize and implement the action plan of the Forest Policy updated with the various actors involved.

·Implementation of pilot tests to verify the operation of SUN online.

"From this moment, we have the enormous challenge of leading national compliance with the Covenant for Legal Timber in Colombia and that forest governance guidelines can be applied across the board. We want some products of our project, can be adopted nationally such as protocols for conducting control activities and monitoring forestry, unified guide for Timber Cubing, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management, the concept of legal timber and others are under construction, "said Rubén Dario Moreno, General Manager Project Positioning of forest governance in Colombia.