Tues­day, Mei 04, 2010 (Solo­Pos): The peo­ple liv­ing in south­ern part of Java, from Gunungkidul in Yogyakarta, to Batuwarno in Wono­giri and Pac­i­tan in East Java are very lucky for they have been suc­cess­ful in trans­form­ing an arid, bar­ren and rocky area into forests that bring not only eco­nom­i­cal ben­e­fits – as a source of liveli­hood and a form of sav­ing – but also eco­log­i­cal benefits.

The emer­gence of many new water springs, lush green­ery and fresh air as well as deter­rent to global warm­ing, are some of the eco­log­i­cal benefits.

How­ever, a more dif­fi­cult chal­lenge awaits namely for­est sus­tain­abil­ity, espe­cially when the woods extracted from the for­est are to be exported.

World mar­ket, par­tic­u­larly that of Euro­pean, is very cau­tious to non-certified wood prod­ucts. In 1990s, encour­aged by the envi­ron­men­tal­ists, Indone­sian wooden prod­ucts and fur­ni­ture were boy­cotted due to the fact that they were extracted from forests with ques­tion­able sus­tain­abil­ity sta­tus. For­est sus­tain­abil­ity is proven with a sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment certificate.

There are sev­eral insti­tu­tions work­ing in the field of sus­tain­able com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. One of them is the Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute (LEI), which was estab­lished in Bogor. Founded in 1998, LEI has per­formed cer­ti­fi­ca­tion on 1.1 mil­lion hectares of nat­ural forests; 453,000 hectares of plan­ta­tion forests; 21,000 hectares of com­mu­nity for­est and indige­nous com­mu­nity forests through­out Indone­sia, includ­ing in Wono­giri and Pacitan.

To obtain sus­tain­able for­est cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the com­mu­nity mem­bers that man­age the for­est must estab­lish a for­est man­age­ment unit (FMU). As an exam­ple, com­mu­nity in Batuwarno formed Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Forum for Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Farmer (Forum Komu­nikasi Petani Ser­ti­fikasi — FKPS) Selop­uro and FKPS Sum­berejo. In Pac­i­tan, the com­mu­nity has formed Rimba Sari FMU and Kelom­pok Wana Rejo Asri in Sra­gen. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments include a series of tests and field inspections.

Despite the internationally-acknowledged stan­dards, the cer­tifi­cate is yet to bring sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits to the for­est com­mu­ni­ties. This is due to the facts that first, the plants are still young and have not reached the felling age. Sec­ond, only a lim­ited area of for­est that is cur­rently cer­ti­fied which lead to lim­ited pub­lic expose for the con­cern that it will bring a con­sid­er­able num­ber of demands for for­est prod­ucts which can threaten forests sustainability.

The future mar­ket for such for­est prod­ucts looks very promis­ing, par­tic­u­larly with the increase of global com­mu­ni­ties’ aware­ness on envi­ron­ment sus­tain­abil­ity and the legal­ity of wood prod­ucts. “Another chal­lenge to face is how to cre­ate other sources of liveli­hood for the own­ers of com­mu­nity forests so that they do not solely depend on the for­est to sus­tain their live. Based on our expe­ri­ences, peo­ple still per­form felling-when-needed habit. Such habit needs to be changed,” said Gladi Hariyanto of LEI.

Persepsi’s Vice Direc­tor of Agri­cul­ture, Forestry and Envi­ron­ment, Taryanto Wijaya – who has been assist­ing to the peo­ple in Batuwarno and Pac­i­tan, admits that the felling-when-needed habit is a threat in achiev­ing sus­tain­able com­mu­nity forests. – By: Suharsih.