La misurazione dei legnami inclusi in CITES

The conservation of natural resources has raised increasing interest in recent decades as a result of the greater attention to environmental issues. In this context the CITES Convention (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) deals with the protection of wild species that, because of the commercial interest, could be at risk of extinction. To this end are carried out many controls on the quantities traded, to ensure that the amount stated on the CITES documentation matches with that actually imported and/or exported. For timber this match may not occur because of problems related to the nature of wood and the lack of a uniform method of measuring the elements of the timber shipments. The development of such uniform method is essential to make more effective and efficient the controls and improve, therefore, the fight against illegal trade of endangered species. An aid to this effect may be given by the existing European Standards, but the active cooperation of the international CITES community is essential to legitimate the standardization of the CITES timber measurement.