Wednesday 24, Zanzibar

Another early morning for us, this time not to catch the bus but the plane to the beautiful Zanzibar. Zanzibar is an island where the time seems to have stopped, where the turquoise of the sea is mixing with the green of the land and where you actually don't know if you are still in Africa or in Asia. After checking in in Chwaka bay hotel we started the participant's pilot projects presentations in a very nice and exotic seminar room, at some meters from the sea. The pilot presentations were very interesting showing that the participants really invest in preparation and implementation of their pilot projects. Forest certification is an issue that starts to be recognized as a useful and important tool for sustainable forestry in developing countries

Despite coming from several parts of the world, the participants also came from variate background: some were government representatives, NGO representatives, some works in universities, some in private forest organizations. Thus pilot projects were formulated according to specific needs and of course according to the capability for each country and organisation. They ranged from capacity building in forest certification and forest management to development of national standards or to evaluation of the impacts of forest certification. Pilot project presentation continued on Friday 26.