Bogor, 7/2 (Kom­pas Online): Should the busi­ness sec­tor and for­est pro­cess­ing indus­try in Indone­sia fol­low the Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute (LEI) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion scheme, they can sup­port the world mar­ket effort in tight­en­ing the envi­ron­men­tally friendly require­ments for for­est and wood prod­ucts. This will also be imposed to coun­tries pos­sess­ing wood for­est areas, includ­ing Indonesia.

“The traders and busi­ness sec­tor can use LEI cer­ti­fied raw mate­r­ial (for­est prod­ucts) to answer the ever increas­ing mar­ket demand of envi­ron­men­tally friendly prod­ucts.
Met on the sec­ond day of LEI Com­mu­nity Based Orga­ni­za­tion (CBO) Con­gress II, he stated that, as the Min­is­ter of Forestry MS. Kaban said when open­ing the Con­gress on Fri­day (6/2), LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has pro­vided ben­e­fit for the four for­est stakeholders.

HE said that based on the above increas­ing world mar­ket demand, the busi­ness sec­tor has very lit­tle choice not to par­tic­i­pate in the scheme.
The best argu­men­ta­tion for this is that the cur­rent image and con­di­tion of Indone­sian for­est man­age­ment prac­tices has caused Indone­sian for­est prod­ucts, espe­cially fur­ni­ture prod­ucts, dif­fi­cult to enter the world’s market.

Tau­fiq added that the com­mu­ni­ties in Europe, Japan and USA have con­cern on Indonesia’s for­est prob­lems. “They hope that for­est owner coun­tries like Indone­sia can proof that the for­est uti­liza­tion efforts con­ducted in their areas are not destruc­tive, harm no social aspects of the com­mu­nity and per­formed in a sus­tain­able way,” said Tau­fiq Alimi.
The Forestry Min­is­ter, MS Kaban, stated con­firmed what Tau­fiq said and con­veyed that the world’s for­est indus­try is at the moment strength­en­ing its envi­ron­men­tal require­ments. “The con­sumers have started to look closely to the ori­gin of the wood prod­ucts and ask­ing ques­tions whether the prod­ucts are orig­i­nated from for­est area in where sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment have been prac­ticed,” he said.
There­fore, he added, LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem will strengthen and aug­ments the exist­ing sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. It can also be one of the ways to track back the ori­gin of the mar­keted wood products.

“As a Forestry Min­is­ter, I will pro­tect for­est indus­try using legal woods so that it can com­pete against other indus­try using ille­gal woods. This is also to pro­vide bet­ter bar­gain­ing posi­tion for Indone­sian for­est indus­try at world mar­ket level,” he said.

Com­pul­sory Ver­i­fi­ca­tion
The min­is­ter also said that aside from the above facts, the gov­ern­ment has also imposed the com­pul­sory ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. The com­pul­sory ver­i­fi­ca­tion acts as a pol­icy instru­ment to assess the per­for­mance of a man­age­ment unit (UM) in com­ply­ing with the exist­ing for­est man­age­ment reg­u­la­tions.
In imple­ment­ing the com­pul­sory ver­i­fi­ca­tion, it will be based of sev­eral sus­tain­able for­est cri­te­ria and indi­ca­tors. The cri­te­ria and indi­ca­tors will be con­tin­u­ously eval­u­ated and improved.

“I would like to ask all par­ties involved, espe­cially the man­age­ment units in Indone­sia to con­sider for­est cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a chal­lenge to develop the for­est indus­try,” he said.

Through the above instru­ment, he said, Indone­sia tries to improve its prod­uct com­pet­i­tive­ness and pen­e­trates the inter­na­tional mar­ket. At the same time we try to accel­er­ate the achieve­ment of sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment prac­tice in Indone­sia to improve its community’s prosperity.