(Bogor, May 14 2005): “There are only two vil­lages in Wono­giri area that have con­ducted Sus­tain­able Com­mu­nity Based For­est Man­age­ment (SCBFM) prac­tices. For the next cou­ple of months SCBFM prac­tices are sched­uled to be imple­mented in four other vil­lages” said Teguh Suprapto PERSEPSI direc­tor when met by Solo Pos, Wednes­day (11/5).

At that time, he added, two com­mu­nity for­est located in Selop­uro and Sum­ber rejo vil­lages in the regency of Batuwarno, Wono­giri were the only ecolabel-certified for­est areas. This means that the woods pro­duced from the com­mu­nity for­est areas were processed in a sus­tain­able way. PERSEPSI, an NGO based in Klaten, pro­vide advo­cacy for the farm­ers per­form­ing the SCBFM practices.

Accord­ing to Teguh Suprapto, the total cer­ti­fied for­est area in Selop­uro reaches the size of 262.77 ha with a total farmer of 682 hh. In Sum­ber Rejo, the total cer­ti­fied for­est area is 549.68 ha in size with 1640 hh of farm­ers. The total size of the cer­ti­fied for­est is 812ha. Apart from teak­wood and mahogany, the main plants in the for­est are aca­cia, trem­besi and mindi.

At the moment, the total pro­duc­tion rate resulted from the cer­ti­fied for­est is con­sid­ered lower than the actual demand of cer­ti­fied wood. Based on the above fact, there have been efforts to extend the size of com­mu­nity for­est area to be sub­mit­ted to Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute (LEI). There are four vil­lages pro­posed, namely Girikikis, Sejati, Tir­tosworo and Guwotirto, all located in Giri­woyo Regency. The area lies along Gajah­mungkur river­bank and con­sid­ered as rain water catch­ments area.

Lim­ited
The total size of the com­mu­nity for­est areas in the four vil­lage reaches the num­ber of 2700ha con­sists of field and yard areas in where 5000 farm­ers are involved. Off course the man­age­ment of the com­mu­nity for­est areas must be con­ducted in com­pli­ance with LEI’s standard.

Accord­ing to Taryanto, one of PERSEPSI staffs, must take envi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion into account. For exam­ple the farm­ers in the area should only be allowed to per­fom selec­tive cut­ting due to eco­log­i­cal preser­va­tion aspects. In Selop­uro and SUm­ber Rejo, a farmer who cut one tree must replace it by plant­ing 10–25 of the same tree species and main­tain them.

The reg­u­la­tion has been deter­mined and endorsed since 1970 through a rem­bug desa meet­ing. It is hoped that the reg­u­la­tion can be adopted and strength­ten in a Perdes (vil­lage regulation).

At the moment sev­eral indus­tries become the cus­tomers of Wono­giri for­est cer­ti­fied prod­ucts. One of the indus­try is PT.Novika from Den­pasar. “The prob­lem we have is, the total wood pro­duc­tion resulted from the com­mu­nity for­est is still far too low that it fails to ful­fill the mar­ket demand. This still hap­pens despite the fact that the price of eco­la­bel cer­ti­fied wood prod­ucts are 30% higher com­pared to that of non-certified wood products”.

In a sep­a­rate occa­sion, Joko Widodo, the Chair­man of Surakarta Fur­ni­ture and Sou­venir Exporter Asso­ci­a­tion admits the low pro­duc­tion rate of eco­la­bel cer­ti­fied woods despite the fact that there have been many com­pa­nies requir­ing cer­ti­fied woods for their fur­ni­ture products.

He added that, a few years a go he reg­u­larly export fur­ni­ture for Car­refour hyper­mart with a total rate of eight containers/ month. Envi­ron­men­tal activists, such as Green­peace, protested the prod­ucts due to the non-certified mate­r­ial. Two years a go Car­refour decided to order fur­ni­ture from Brazil. At the moment Joko only export fur­ni­ture for mid­dle to low indus­tries in which eco­la­bel is not a big issue.