(Jakarta, July 8 2008– Riauterkini): Based on the Sur­veil­lance Audit I per­formed bt PT. Mutu­a­gung Lestari cer­ti­fi­ca­tion body, PT. Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper has suc­ceeded in retain­ing the LEI Sus­tain­able Plan­ta­tion For­est Man­age­ment (SPFM) Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Riaupulp first granted this cer­tifi­cate in 2006. The announce­ment of the sur­veil­lance result was con­ducted on Tues­day (7.8) tomor­row in Jakarta.

The sur­veil­lance audit, per­formed by a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion body to a com­pany pos­sess­ing SPFM cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, is aimed at eval­u­ate the man­age­ment unit’s per­for­mance to deter­mine whether the unit is still eli­gi­ble for the cer­tifi­cate. The sur­veil­lance audit is per­formed at least for times dur­ing the valid period (5 years) of the certificate.

Tau­fiq Alimi, the exec­u­tive Direc­tor of LEI, on Mon­day (6/8) said that Riaupulp is the only plan­ta­tion for­est com­pany pos­sess­ing LEI cer­tifi­cate. The cer­tifi­cate was granted on May 2006. Each year, an LEI assigned cer­ti­fi­ca­tion body per­form a sur­veil­lance audit to assess whether the a com­pany is still eli­gi­ble for the cer­tifi­cate. For the case of Riaupulp, PT. Mutu­a­gung Lestari granted the cer­tifi­cate as stated in the deci­sion let­ter No. 673.3/MUTU/VI/07.

The result of the audit indi­cated that Riaupulp is com­mit­ted to imple­ment a sus­tain­able man­age­ment for­est. We care­fully eval­u­ate them from the aspects of pro­duc­tion, social and envi­ron­ment. This com­pany has passed the sur­veil­lance audit for the first year,” said Tau­fiq Alimi, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of LEI.
The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is granted for the Riaupulp 159.500 hectare con­ces­sion area as stated in the Forestry Min­is­ter SK no. No 173/Kpts-II/1997. Riaup­plp retains the cer­tifi­cate as it proofed to be capa­ble of com­ply­ing with LEI stan­dards in man­ag­ing indus­trial plan­ta­tion for­est area based on the social aspects includ­ing rela­tion­ship man­age­ment with com­mu­nity mem­bers, labor solu­tion, the corporate’s envi­ron­ment and pro­duc­tion issues.

Tau­fiq added that in accor­dance to the government’s reg­u­la­tion, at the moment we need nat­ural resources com­pa­nies that per­forms sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment prac­tices, pos­sesses added mar­ket­ing value, and at the same time can be role mod­els of the appro­pri­ate nat­ural resources-based businesses.

“Riaupulp must improve its way of man­ag­ing the for­est in sus­tain­able and fair way. This is very impor­tant so that the busi­ness will pro­vide no harm to the com­mu­nity mem­bers resid­ing around the for­est area,” he said.
Mean­while the Gen­eral Direc­tor of Riaupulp, Rudi Fajar accom­pa­nied by Riaupulp Coor­di­na­tor, Salomo Sito­hang, stated that the suc­cess achieved is an evi­dence of the company’s com­mit­ment to run a respon­si­ble and envi­ron­men­tally friendly for­est indus­try. “The cer­tifi­cate assures that Riaupulp prod­ucts are orig­i­nated from for­est plan­ta­tion area of which man­aged by com­bin­ing the social and envi­ron­men­tal aspects in a sus­tain­able way,” said Rudi.