July 26, 2009 was a spe­cial day for two for­est man­age­ment units that man­age two com­mu­nity forests in Cen­tral Java namely Argo Ban­cak in Lem­beyan Dis­trict, Mage­tan Regency and Wana Rejo Asri (WARAS) in Sam­birejo Dis­trict, Sra­gen. Both are located in Cen­tral Java, Indonesia.

After a long prepa­ra­tion to apply for the LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion assess­ment, the Deci­sion Mak­ing Panel from PT Mutu Agung Lestari, a LEI accred­ited cer­ti­fi­ca­tion body, stated that both com­mu­nity forests have passed the LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion assess­ment on Com­mu­nity Based For­est Man­age­ment (CBFM). The Panel stated that they are capa­ble of man­ag­ing their forests areas in a sus­tain­able way.

Argo Ban­cak, a for­est man­age­ment unit that man­ages com­mu­nity for­est of 600 hectares in 3 vil­lages, while WARAS, a for­est man­age­ment unit that man­ages com­mu­nity forests of approx­i­mately 1,404 hectares in 8 vil­lages. The com­mu­nity forests grow on the sites owned by the farmer mem­bers in their yards, fields, and forests.
The sites are dom­i­nated by Teak wood, Mahogany, Sen­gon and Aca­cia trees, with an annual log rate of 1,572 m3/year in Argo Ban­cak and 5,056 m3/year in Waras.

The achieve­ment of both man­age­ment units is also a result of hard work and com­mit­ments from the local stake­hold­ers, such as local NGOs and local gov­ern­ment. The prepa­ra­tion of the man­age­ment units to apply for the LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion assess­ment was car­ried out by the local prepa­ra­tion team, col­lab­o­rat­ing with local NGO namely PERSEPSI, which sup­ported by the Forestry Office of East Java and Cen­tral Java provinces, as well as Stan­dard­iza­tion and Envi­ron­men­tal Cen­ter from the Min­istry of Forestry.

The sup­port was given as com­mit­ment as well as finan­cial sup­port for the prepa­ra­tion and assess­ment of LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process. Dur­ing the assess­ment process, the sup­port­ers fol­lowed the whole assess­ment processes start­ing from the site sur­vey to deci­sion mak­ing. Direct sup­port from the wider par­ties par­tic­u­larly from the regional and cen­tral gov­ern­ment (through the Min­istry of Forestry, Pus­tan­dling) becomes the start­ing point to extend the areas of cer­ti­fied com­mu­nity for­est to achieve sus­tain­able for­est and com­mu­nity welfare.

Accord­ing to Mr. Tir­san Yusuf, the Head of Forestry Office in Mage­tan, the suc­cess of Argo Ban­cak in pass­ing the LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has encour­age other par­ties to con­tin­u­ously imple­ment sus­tain­able com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment sys­tem. As men­tioned by Mr. Wakidi– the Head of Forestry Office in Sra­gen — the Forestry Office will con­tinue to pre­pare other com­mu­nity forests for LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion assess­ment, as well as estab­lish­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with other par­ties for mar­ket­ing. Accord­ing to Mr. Bibit– the Chief of Waras and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Argo Ban­cak– at first, they did not expect their man­age­ment units to be able to pass the LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. There­fore, aside of feel­ing relieved and grate­ful, they feel that it is their respon­si­bil­ity now to pre­serve the com­mu­nity for­est in their areas.

The suc­cess achieved by both com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment units has expanded the total LEI cer­ti­fied com­mu­nity for­est areas. More than 16,700 hectare of com­mu­nity and indigenous/traditional for­est areas, man­aged by 8 (eight) com­mu­nity for­est man­age­ment units have obtained the LEI cer­tifi­cates of sus­tain­able man­aged for­est. The area dis­tri­b­u­tion also expands, cov­er­ing Cen­tral Java, DI Yogyakarta, West Kali­man­tan, and East Java provinces. Other com­mu­nity forests in other regen­cies in East Java, Cen­tral Java, Jog­jakarta and West Java are prepar­ing them­selves to apply for the LEI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process. The total sus­tain­able for­est man­aged by local com­mu­nity mem­bers will be expand­ing in the future.