Development of MyTropicalTimber.org

The website “MyTropicalTimber.org” is a B to B site, translated into 7 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Danish), inspired by the website developed by the French federation LCB “Boistropicaux.org”, and aimed at professionals wishing to obtain information or simply find a supplier of tropical wood among more than 100 species in one of the European countries represented.

The present lack of such a site risks misapplication of tropical material and damage to its reputation. With no centralised information base, each timber trader and processor provides their own technical and marketing message, with the result that sales staff and customers may be misled. This can lead to misspecification, resulting in timber staining and failure and customers subsequently choosing other materials.

The ATIBT (International Tropical Timber Technical Association) builded a one-stop website giving performance, use and specification data for tropical timber species. The goal is to make it easier for the trade to sell tropical hardwood, and for end users and specifiers to select the right material for the job. The aim is also to broaden application of tropical wood by increasing market confidence in using it in more areas and more ambitious projects.

Our objectives are also to strengthen working relationships with all European associations, and to communicate our role in areas such as promoting use of legal and sustainable tropical timber and encouraging application of lesser known species. It is being further adjusted to each national context, taking into account specific technical standards, and listing distributors. The page of each supplier can be enhanced with photos and films and the national federations will administer their own page independently. The site incorporates pictures of species and applications, underpinned with technical specification data from the Tropix database of French-based agricultural research organisation CIRAD.

The project is in 3 phases:

• Network building of European federation
• Build a useful and clear tool / Choose the design to offer the best visibility
• Add all the information per country, the translation and the suppliers

The ATIBT and STTC wish to deploy this tool at European level, in order to federate all actors and provide a clear message for the European user. The site is now available online.  This project remains open to all wood federations in Europe who wish to join us. Only aid for translation is requested.