The International Tropical Timber Organization 06.18.2010
About The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)
The International Tropical Timber Organization, ITTO, was established in 1986. The whole world was concerning about the resources from the tropical timbers at that time, because many tropical trees over the world were being deteriorated, so in the future, there will be not enough tropical timbers to use. This organization was constructed under the International Tropical Timber Agreement, ITTA.
Main office : Yokohama, Japan
Numbers of staffs : 35 (including assistants)
Signatories : 61 countries
Producers of the timbers : 33 countries
Consumers of the timbers : 28 countries
Money : ITTO gets money from many countries as contributions, which become the salaries for the workers at ITTO. The money for projects to protect the tropical trees is mainly from Japan, Switzerland, and the United States.
The Objectives for ITTO
The objectives for ITTO are: 
・Protecting the tropical forests
・Planting/restoring the trees on the deleted grounds
・Saving everything in the forests such as insects, plants, and animals.
・Reducing the global warming
The Work at ITTO
As people can easily imagine, they protect the tropical trees to not cut them randomly all over the world. However, protecting the trees does not mean it is the best thing for everyone. The countries, which produce the trees, want to cut more and more trees to develop their ecoomy. The countries, which consume the trees, want to get more and more trees. In fact, managing the balance between producing and protecting is the main work at ITTO.
In order to save many forests as possible, ITTO first sees the conditions of the tropical forests and divides them into several groups. There are mainly three groups of the forests; the forests which need to be protected, the forests which can produce timbers under the management, and the forests which were totally deteriorated.
ITTO also controls 90% of all trades of wood products in order to make them clear. Before they control the trades, the countries did not really graps what was going on between the trades, which used to be complex. After ITTO began to interfere the trades, they could increase the clarity of the trades.
For those countries, which produce the tropical timbers, ITTO tries to promote the exportations of the timbers so that the countries can develop their economy. Since many forests need to pe protected, the countries cannot cut a lot of trees, so the economy tends to get worse. ITTO always tries to have new ideas to make the trades more frequently enough to maintain or develop the economy.
About the Day at ITTO
First, people at ITTO guided students to the office. We walked around the office and talked with the head of ITTO from Cameroon. He was really nice to us. We asked several questions and took photos with him and other staffs. He said he has been Yokohama, Japan for 20 years to work at ITTO. I thought this is wonderful because I knew that it should be very hard to live in different country and follow different culture from Cameroon. I could feel he must be a hard worker and have a strong feeling to work at ITTO. Each worker at ITTO has their own office to work and it looked comfortable and suitble for working.
After finishing the tour for the office, we had a presentation about ITTO by a professional worker from Ghana. I learned a lot of thing I did not know before from that. I was truly surprised by the fact that the troppical forests, which have almost same size as the area of a succer field, are deteriorated in 2 seconds. I found out that working at ITTO is interesting after I listened the talking of staffs. They looked genuinely satisfied with their jobs. They all said it is fun to communicate with and try to persuade other countries' people. Other countries have different cultures from Japan, so sometimes it may be tough to work with them; however, when the negotiations are successful, workers can feel strong sense of achievement.
I was talking with the worker, who had a presentation for us, and asked several questions. It was really fantastic to talk with real worker, because I could listen the actual story of the job, which was interesting and sometimes mysterious. It was also beneficial to know what people at ITTO studied at Universities. The worker I talked with said he studied lots of things like foresty, ecology, biology, international relationships, and other studies. I thought when I choose what I study at the university, I need to consider what I am going to do in the future, because the stuff I learn at the university must be useful when I work at offices. This time was my first time to visit the organization of the United Nation, so I learned more innumerable things about the United Nation than I expected.