(Samarinda, April 2, 2008-ANTARA News): The eco­la­bel cer­tifi­cate, cur­rently being cam­paigned by the Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute (LEI), is not due to inter­na­tional pres­sure. It has become a neces­sity for the good and sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment efforts.

“For for­est man­age­ment unit both in Indone­sia and over­sea, eco­la­bel cer­tifi­cate is a neces­sity,” said Dr. Agus Set­yarso, a mem­ber of LEI aca­d­e­mic con­stituent and the Chair­man of Wood Legal­ity Ver­i­fi­ca­tion Stan­dard Com­mis­sion Work Team in Samarinda, Kali­man­tan Timur, Wednesday.

Agus stated the above fact in respond­ing to a ques­tion asked by Muk­lis, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from For­est Con­ces­sion­ar­ies Com­pany, dur­ing the Sem­i­nar and Pub­lic Con­sul­ta­tion with the theme of: “Wood Legal­ity Stan­dard: Pro­vid­ing Guar­an­tee for Indone­sian Wood Prod­ucts Legal­ity” held by LEI in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cen­ter for Social Forestry (CSF) of Mulawar­man University.

LEI is a con­stituent based orga­ni­za­tion which mis­sion is to cre­ate a fair and sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment prac­tices in Indone­sia.
Aimed at cre­at­ing fair for­est man­age­ment prac­tices, LEI’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem pro­vides guar­an­tee in pre­serv­ing the forest’s social and eco­log­i­cal functions.

Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion, Muk­lis asked whether the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process, which requires a long process, is due to inter­na­tional pres­sure par­tic­u­larly from west­ern coun­tries. West­ern coun­tries are at the moment requir­ing that all sup­plier coun­tries, includ­ing Indone­sia, use woods orig­i­nated from legal for­est areas and gen­er­ated in a sus­tain­able way.

As a rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the busi­ness sec­tor, Muk­lis would like to know what ben­e­fit will the busi­ness sec­tor obtained by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the eco­la­bel scheme. “Will there be guar­an­tees that we will get bet­ter wood price once we join the scheme?” he asked.

Agus Set­yarso, who is also a lec­turer of Forestry Fac­ulty in Post Grad­u­ate Depart­ment, Gad­jah mada Uni­ver­sity, explained that the busi­ness sec­tor, both run by for­est con­ces­sion­ar­ies and com­mu­nity mem­bers, can get a pre­mium price.

Com­pared to the non-certified woods, there is a 30% price increase for the cer­ti­fied woods. The 30% increase is the pre­mium price,” Agus said.

Agus explained that the main pur­pose of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion scheme is to reg­u­late the wood traf­fic in the coun­try, and the regulation’s instru­ment is through the wood legal­ity ver­i­fi­ca­tion.
Through the Com­mu­nity Based For­est Man­age­ment (CBFM) pro­gram imple­mented in the com­mu­nity man­aged for­est area in Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta and Klaten, Cen­tral Java, the com­mu­nity mem­bers can man­age to meet the for­eign mar­ket demand. They have man­aged to export two con­tain­ers (approx­i­mately 100 meter cubic) of woods and obtained an income of IDR 350 mil­lions per village.

LEI Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Man­ager, Indra Setia Dewi, stated that sim­i­lar com­mu­nity based for­est man­age­ment sys­tem is at the moment being imple­mented in Kapuas Hulu Dis­trict, Kali­man­tan Barat in where the Kam­pung Sun­gai Utik eth­nic com­mu­nity resides.

She fur­ther explained that there is a tremen­dous polit­i­cal and econ­omy pres­sure in the area where the eth­nic com­mu­nity resides. The com­mu­nity lives in the pro­duc­tion for­est area in the bor­der of Kali­man­tan barat province and Malayaisa’s Ser­awak. The local gov­ern­ment there has the plan to estab­lish a mas­sive palm oil plan­ta­tion in the area with a total size of one mil­lion hectares.

The Kam­pung Sun­gai utik com­mu­nity mem­bers have man­aged to pre­serve the 9.452,5 ha for­est area for gen­er­a­tions. Though tra­di­tion­ally man­aged the result gained from the for­est is almost the same as the result gained from the con­ces­sion area. Most woods pro­duced from the com­mu­nity man­aged for­est area are woods of highly com­mer­cial types such as Mer­anti, Ramin, Kem­pas etc.
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