The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is looking to expand trade in forest products at its Ministerial meeting in Seattle in November 1999. A proposed elimination of tariffs on forest products could encourage a massive increase in logging world-wide, putting an undue strain on US forests, and threatening the last old growth forests of the Amazon, Africa and Canada with fast-track destruction.Many environmental protection measures aimed at sustainable forestry practices, such as timber trade regulations, forest management standards, restrictions on pest-infested log imports and building codes that protect domestic industry by discouraging the use of imported materials like wood, can be argued to impede trade and could therefore be banned.