Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta | Fri, 05/14/2010 9:56 AM | The Arch­i­pel­ago:  Refor­esta­tion efforts are ben­e­fit­ing local res­i­dents in Selop­uro, Wono­giri, Cen­tral Java, as they are not only keep­ing forests green, they are rais­ing liv­ing standards.

For Mis­man, 59, a father of three, the increas­ing num­ber of chil­dren going to school is evi­dence that stan­dards of liv­ing in the vil­lage are improving.

“Dur­ing my time, only two peo­ple, includ­ing me, com­pleted junior high school. Just to have food on the table was dif­fi­cult, let alone attend school,” he said.

Local peo­ple are becom­ing aware that for­est con­ser­va­tion runs par­al­lel to ris­ing liv­ing stan­dards through the sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate program.

Accord­ing to Slamet Riyadi Gadas, who heads envi­ron­ment and for­est stan­dard­iza­tion affairs at the Forestry Min­istry, com­mu­nity forests can obtain sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­vided they meet three con­di­tions. Forests must be kept green and the socioe­co­nomic value and eco­log­i­cal func­tion of the for­est must be main­tained in order to obtain certification.

Slamet said that cer­ti­fi­ca­tion efforts were first ini­ti­ated in 1990 when Euro­pean coun­tries boy­cotted trop­i­cal tim­ber prod­ucts because they were not man­aged in a sus­tain­able manner.

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem was started in 2002 by the non-profit insti­tu­tion the Indone­sian Eco­la­belling Insti­tute (LEI).

To endorse whether or not a com­mu­nity for­est war­rants a cer­tifi­cate, the LEI has appointed four insti­tu­tions respon­si­ble, PT Mutu Agung Lestar (PT MAL), PT TuV Inter­na­tional Indone­sia, PT Sucofindo and PT SGS Indonesia.

Since its ini­ti­a­tion in 2002, it has so far issued LEI cer­tifi­cates to 10 sus­tain­able com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment units in Java, span­ning a total of 21,000 hectares.

“Eco­la­belling cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is now part of the world trad­ing sys­tem and as a mem­ber of the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion [WTO], Indone­sia should com­ply with the standardization.

“The mar­ket of for­est prod­ucts is very promis­ing and its eco­nomic value is higher because con­sumers are now aware of sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment,” said Slamet.

“It is more eco­nom­i­cally viable and people’s wel­fare will def­i­nitely improve with sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment,” said Siman, who is the leader of an accred­ited farm­ers’ forum.

Since car­ry­ing out refor­esta­tion to make their forests the first to be cer­ti­fied as a com­mu­nity for­est in Indone­sia in 2004, vil­lagers in Selop­uro have rapidly improved their wel­fare. There are now 22 sources of water avail­able for more than 21,000 peo­ple in the village.

“Before the refor­esta­tion, the area was bar­ren and the only water source was far away. The res­i­dents had to spend most of their days fetch­ing water,” Siman said.

Now, they can use their spare time to engage in pro­duc­tive activ­i­ties, such as rais­ing livestock.

As many as 80 per­cent of the vil­lagers cur­rently own at least two heads of cat­tle and five goats
per family.

To meet their daily needs, the res­i­dents cul­ti­vate side crops among the woods.

“Vil­lagers earn an aver­age of Rp 600,000 [US$60], exclud­ing pro­ceeds from live­stock breed­ing. They save the money from sell­ing tim­ber whose pro­ceeds are big­ger,” said Misman.

“You can cal­cu­late the yields, exclud­ing prof­its from pro­cess­ing for­est tim­ber, and see that refor­esta­tion is more ben­e­fi­cial,” said Misman.