(Vibizdaily-National) Sus­tain­able com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment is an exam­ple of com­mu­nity activ­ity that brings pos­i­tive impacts on the water­shed con­ser­va­tion and land cov­er­age restora­tion, said spokesper­son for the Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute, Indra S Dewi.

”In addi­tion to that, the activ­ity also directly con­tributes to the increased wel­fare of the com­mu­ni­ties mem­bers who man­age the sus­tain­able for­est”, Indra said dur­ing the work­shop themed “My For­est is Sus­tain­able, the River is Friendly, the Com­mu­nity is Pros­per­ous”, held in Yogyakarta, Wednesday.

Ini­ti­ated by the Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute (LEI), the work­shop was held dur­ing a visit from jour­nal­ists to com­mu­nity for­est areas in the dis­tricts of Wono­giri in Cen­tral Java and Pac­i­tan in East Java.

Indra fur­ther explained that LEI, as a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to develop an eco­la­bel cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem for sus­tain­able resources man­age­ment, would very much like to intro­duce sus­tain­able com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment to pub­lic because not only sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment could help con­serve the envi­ron­ment, it could also help fur­ther develop the com­mu­ni­ties which imple­mented the system.

Indra also added that dur­ing 2004–2010, sev­eral par­ties had build a col­lab­o­ra­tion to pro­mote com­mu­nity for­est con­ser­va­tion with thwe aim to help save water­shed areas. This was per­formed by uti­liz­ing the LEI-standard eco­la­bel certification.

To achieve it, the Provin­cial and Dis­trict Offices of the Min­istry of Forestry, the Water­shed Man­age­ment Hall, the Cen­ter for Envi­ron­men­taal Stan­dard­iza­tion of the Min­istry of Forestry and the Asso­ci­a­tion for Eco­nomic and Social Study and Devel­op­ment (Per­him­punan untuk Studi dan Pengem­ban­gan Ekonomi dan Sosial PERSEPSI) – a com­mu­nity econ­omy empow­er­ment orga­ni­za­tion – have worked hand in hand to pro­mote eco­la­bel cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for com­mu­nity forests located along the 4 water­shed areas.

The four water­shed areas are Solo and Pemali-Jratun water­sheds in Cen­tral Java, Sam­peyan water­shed in Madura and Cimanuk-Cisanggarung and Citan­duy water­sheds in West Java.

Water­sheds’ con­di­tion in Indone­sia has become more severe as indi­cated by fre­quent floods, droughts, and land­slides due to the inabil­ity of defor­ested upriver area in absorb­ing rain water.

The decrease in water­shed qual­ity is directly caused by irre­spon­si­ble upriver defor­esta­tion process in meet­ing the recent urgent demands, such as con­ver­sion of for­est areas into plan­ta­tions, agri­cul­tural and res­i­den­tial areas.

As the result, the com­mu­nity mem­bers must endure the con­se­quences, such as los­ing their prop­er­ties, cat­tle, rice fields, valu­ables, etc.

LEI’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dard is opted to help save the water­shed because it pro­motes a sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment prac­tice and empow­er­ment of com­mu­ni­ties per­form­ing such prac­tice. Thus, it will stim­u­late the growth of for­est farm­ers’ welfare.

Apart from that, LEI’s Chain of Cus­tody (CoC) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will ensure that wood and non-wood prod­ucts are extracted only from sus­tain­able and legal com­mu­nity forests.

Wood and non-wood prod­ucts extracted from sus­tain­able and legal sources will bear the LEI-CoC iden­tity on their pack­age or surface.

PT Jawa Furni Lestari have been pro­duc­ing LEI-CoC cer­ti­fied wood prod­ucts. The com­pany processes the mate­ri­als, of which gen­er­ated from LEI-certified com­mu­nity forests, into wooden furniture.

So far, there are 10 LEI-certified sus­tain­able com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment units (Unit Man­a­je­men Hutan Rakyat – UMHR). Five of them are located along Solo water­shed areas, i.e. in Wono­giri, Pac­i­tan, Suko­harjo, Sra­gen, and Mage­tan Districts.

The prepa­ra­tions for LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is cur­rently being per­formed along the Pemali-Jratun water­shed area that includes Batang and Peka­lon­gan Dis­tricts; Cimanuk-Cisanggarung water­shed area; and itan­duy water­shed area includes the Dis­tricts of Garut, Sumedang, Majalengka, Brebes, and Peka­lon­gan, added Indra.

The suc­cess­ful achieve­ment of the above 5 UMHRs was the result of a multi-party col­lab­o­ra­tion which involves com­mu­nity mem­bers, which man­aged the com­mu­nity for­est area, and the Asso­ci­a­tion for Eco­nomic and Social Study and Devel­op­ment (Per­him­punan untuk Studi dan Pengem­ban­gan Ekonomi dan Sosial PERSEPSI) as the guar­an­tor and partner.

In addi­tion to that, other par­ties involved in the col­lab­o­ra­tion are the Dis­trict Office of the Min­istry of Forestry, as part­ner and facil­i­ta­tor, the East Java Province Provin­cial Office of the Min­istry of Forestry, the Solo Dis­trict Office of Water­shed Man­age­ment (Balai Pen­gelo­laan Daerah Ali­ran Sun­gai — BPDAS) and the Cen­ter for Stan­dard­iza­tion and Envi­ron­ment of the Min­istry of Forestry which pro­vided the fund­ing and other types of supports.

Con­ser­va­tion pro­gram
Mean­while, the Man­ager of LEI Accred­i­ta­tion and Sec­re­tari­ate Gladi Hardiyanto stated that the water­shed con­ser­va­tion pro­gram is in line with the Min­is­ter of Forestry’s pro­grams, of which had selected 108 water­shed areas as con­ser­va­tion areas pri­or­i­ties dur­ing the five years devel­op­ment period (2010–2014).

Fur­ther­more, the pro­gram is also in line with the Pres­i­den­tial Instruc­tion No. 5/2008 on the focus of eco­nomic pro­gram year 2008–2009 on water­shed man­age­ment strate­gies and key efforts to be taken for the next 20 years.

To pro­mote envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion move­ment for com­mu­nity forests in other areas, LEI invited local jour­nal­ists from var­i­ous provinces to join a field visi. The jour­nal­ists were able directly observed the field activ­ity processes, start­ing from the com­mu­nity forests to the man­u­fac­tur­ing of LEI-CoC-certified wooden products.

The objec­tive of the activ­ity, he said, was to give an expe­ri­ence to the jour­nal­ists on sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment prac­tices of which have been able to sup­port the community’s devel­op­ment and envi­ron­ment conservation.

The field visit was also aimed at intro­duc­ing LEI stan­dard eco­la­bel cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in sus­tain­able com­mu­nity forests and LEI-certified wood prod­ucts in Wono­giri, Pac­i­tan, and Gunung Kidul areas.
(ras/RAS/ant)

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