The drilled-well in Sumberejo Village, Batuwarno Subdistrict, Wonogiri was made in 2000. The spring that was founded by the local villagers can produce up to hundreds meter cubic of water per second.

Thanks to the spring, no less than 680 families in the village and surrounding areas can now enjoy a year-long access to sufficient amount of clean water. They no longer need to walk kilometers away to fetch water.

What more surprising is the fact that there are still more than 22 unexplored and unexploited springs in the village and another 16 in Selopuro Village.

All emerge after the community members of the two villages transform their land into community forests.

“Before the community forests grown here, the land was arid and barren. Water spring was located far from the villages. However, due to the reforestation, water now seems to spring everywhere,” said Katmo, a villager from Selopuro.

Communal Work
Persepsi’s Vice Director, Taryanto Wijaya – who has been assisting to the people in Selopuro and Sumberejo in their endeavor to conserve the environment, said that it was the community who found the spring.

Together they pushed aside rocks, drilled a well and installed a 6x450 watts water pump.

“A team with a task to manage the well and evenly distributed the water to the villagers has also been established here,” said Taryanto.

Meanwhile, in Selopuro – according to a local tree-planting pioneer, Misman – people built a dam to store water produced by the spring. Villagers can then make use of the water for their daily needs and to irrigate their field. Also according to Misman, he and other villagers need to transport 1.168 trucks of stone to build the dam.

Other positive impacts of the community forests – apart from the newly emerged water springs – are new work opportunities. So far, the community has processed twigs of teak, mahogany, and other hardwood trees into handicrafts. Thus, they can benefit from the forests without logging them.

For many, twigs are useless waste or, at the utmost, used only as firewood. However, for Siman, they can be collected and processed into various artistic furniture.

Twigs are usually made into sofas, cabinets or a set of table and chairs. The 5-cm in diameter twigs are arranged, assembled, and formed into furniture. Some decorated with glass.

“We are currently finishing the order from PT Jawafurni Lestari in Yogyakarta. Our business enterprise is run by 6–8 employees,” said Siman.

PT Jawafurni Lestari is a company that specializes in exporting furniture made from certified wood. Siman is yet to widely market his products to other companies. – By: Suharsih

Exploring the southern part of Java, from Gunungkidul in Yogyakarta Province to Pracimantoro, Giriwoyo and Batuwarno in Wonogiri then to Pacitan in East Java is an exciting journey. Lush greenery stretches far beyond eyesight, dotted with hills on both sides of the road.

Rock, as the major geological structure found in this karst area, is no longer visible. All are covered with plants, ranging from teak, albizia, rain tree, mahogany and other hardwood species.

Seasonal plants, such as cassava and groundnuts are planted on the spaces between the hardwood trees to sustain farmers’ daily needs.

Forest planting activities in the forest of southern Java was started in 1950s. Limited access to state forests, the decrease in land and environment qualities, demands for woods, cattle feed and water sources, all had encouraged the surrounding communities to plant their land with perennial and seasonal plants. Thus, community forests came to grow and variously named wana, alas, talun, kebun campur, and lembo by the communities.

It took around 20 years for the community in Selopuro, Batuwarno Subdistrict – the first community in Indonesia to obtain sustainable forest management certificate from LEI in 2004 – to promote planting culture and awareness on maintaining forest sustainability.

Some of the tree-planting pioneers, such as Misman and Siman, experienced the hardship of promoting such culture and awareness. Together with Persepsi NGO, they fought the challenges and can now proudly state that the planting rate is higher than the logging rate.

“At the beginning, we even cultivate seeds by ourselves and distribute the seedlings to the communities so that they would be willing to plant their land with hardwood plant,” said Misman. – By: Suharsih

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”In addition to that, the activity also directly contributes to the increased welfare of the communities members who manage the sustainable forest”, Indra said during the workshop themed “My Forest is Sustainable, the River is Friendly, the Community is Prosperous”, held in Yogyakarta, Wednesday.

Initiated by the Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute (LEI), the workshop was held during a visit from journalists to community forest areas in the districts of Wonogiri in Central Java and Pacitan in East Java.

Indra further explained that LEI, as a non-profit organization working to develop an ecolabel certification system for sustainable resources management, would very much like to introduce sustainable community forest management to public because not only sustainable forest management could help conserve the environment, it could also help further develop the communities which implemented the system.

Indra also added that during 2004–2010, several parties had build a collaboration to promote community forest conservation with thwe aim to help save watershed areas. This was performed by utilizing the LEI-standard ecolabel certification.

To achieve it, the Provincial and District Offices of the Ministry of Forestry, the Watershed Management Hall, the Center for Environmentaal Standardization of the Ministry of Forestry and the Association for Economic and Social Study and Development (Perhimpunan untuk Studi dan Pengembangan Ekonomi dan Sosial PERSEPSI) – a community economy empowerment organization – have worked hand in hand to promote ecolabel certification for community forests located along the 4 watershed areas.

The four watershed areas are Solo and Pemali-Jratun watersheds in Central Java, Sampeyan watershed in Madura and Cimanuk-Cisanggarung and Citanduy watersheds in West Java.

Watersheds’ condition in Indonesia has become more severe as indicated by frequent floods, droughts, and landslides due to the inability of deforested upriver area in absorbing rain water.

The decrease in watershed quality is directly caused by irresponsible upriver deforestation process in meeting the recent urgent demands, such as conversion of forest areas into plantations, agricultural and residential areas.

As the result, the community members must endure the consequences, such as losing their properties, cattle, rice fields, valuables, etc.

LEI’s certification standard is opted to help save the watershed because it promotes a sustainable forest management practice and empowerment of communities performing such practice. Thus, it will stimulate the growth of forest farmers’ welfare.

Apart from that, LEI’s Chain of Custody (CoC) certification will ensure that wood and non-wood products are extracted only from sustainable and legal community forests.

Wood and non-wood products extracted from sustainable and legal sources will bear the LEI-CoC identity on their package or surface.

PT Jawa Furni Lestari have been producing LEI-CoC certified wood products. The company processes the materials, of which generated from LEI-certified community forests, into wooden furniture.

So far, there are 10 LEI-certified sustainable community forest management units (Unit Manajemen Hutan Rakyat – UMHR). Five of them are located along Solo watershed areas, i.e. in Wonogiri, Pacitan, Sukoharjo, Sragen, and Magetan Districts.

The preparations for LEI certification is currently being performed along the Pemali-Jratun watershed area that includes Batang and Pekalongan Districts; Cimanuk-Cisanggarung watershed area; and itanduy watershed area includes the Districts of Garut, Sumedang, Majalengka, Brebes, and Pekalongan, added Indra.

The successful achievement of the above 5 UMHRs was the result of a multi-party collaboration which involves community members, which managed the community forest area, and the Association for Economic and Social Study and Development (Perhimpunan untuk Studi dan Pengembangan Ekonomi dan Sosial PERSEPSI) as the guarantor and partner.

In addition to that, other parties involved in the collaboration are the District Office of the Ministry of Forestry, as partner and facilitator, the East Java Province Provincial Office of the Ministry of Forestry, the Solo District Office of Watershed Management (Balai Pengelolaan Daerah Aliran Sungai — BPDAS) and the Center for Standardization and Environment of the Ministry of Forestry which provided the funding and other types of supports.

Conservation program
Meanwhile, the Manager of LEI Accreditation and Secretariate Gladi Hardiyanto stated that the watershed conservation program is in line with the Minister of Forestry’s programs, of which had selected 108 watershed areas as conservation areas priorities during the five years development period (2010–2014).

Furthermore, the program is also in line with the Presidential Instruction No. 5/2008 on the focus of economic program year 2008–2009 on watershed management strategies and key efforts to be taken for the next 20 years.

To promote environmental conservation movement for community forests in other areas, LEI invited local journalists from various provinces to join a field visi. The journalists were able directly observed the field activity processes, starting from the community forests to the manufacturing of LEI-CoC-certified wooden products.

The objective of the activity, he said, was to give an experience to the journalists on sustainable forest management practices of which have been able to support the community’s development and environment conservation.

The field visit was also aimed at introducing LEI standard ecolabel certification in sustainable community forests and LEI-certified wood products in Wonogiri, Pacitan, and Gunung Kidul areas.
(ras/RAS/ant)

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Sumiyati (51), a community forest farmer, stated that an acknowledgement as ecolabel-certified community forest brought about two benefits.

A statement made during the discussion with the participants of journalist workshop and field visit themed “My Forest is Sustainable, the River is Friendly, the Community is Prosperous” organized by the Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute (LEI) in a community forest in Ngasem Sub Village, Tinatar Village, Punung Sub District, Pacitan District.

“First, we gain an acknowledgement on our ability to implement sustainable forest management. Second, we can also help save the environment,” she said while adding that the latter was considered very beneficial because landslides and floods still occured up to the year 2000.

She also said that based on her parents’ experiences back in 1960s, Pacitan was a barren area consisting mainly of karst, on which only hardwood trees, such as acacias, could grow.

“Water sources were also difficult to access, around 2 kilometers away. But now, many new water sources are found as the condition of the forest are becoming better,” said this lady – who also works as Tinatar Village Secretary.

A more detailed statement expressed by Sapuri, an administrator at the “Rimba Sari” Cooperative Forest Management Unit (FMU) from Pacitan, which had been declared to pass the Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute Sustainable Community Based Forest Management (PHBML-LEI) certification with remark on March 3, 2010

“The commitment to achieve ‘Green Pacitan’ will surely be strengthened with the acknowledgement on ecolabel certified community forest,” he said.

An outreach officer from the Pacitan District Office of Forestry and Plantation, Luwarno, added that the process to reach the current state of Pacitan forests and achieve LEI ecolabel certificate was not an easy and short one.

“It was surely not easy to build people’s awareness to a point where they voluntarily perform tree plantings. However, we have reached that point,” said the officer who has been working in Punung Sub District since 1984.

Another outreach officer, Wardoyo, added that in 1971, due to the difficulties in mobilizing the community to plant trees, aeroplane seeding was performed to sow hardwood tree seeds on steep karst.

Meanwhile, the Head of Pacitan District Office of Forestry and Plantation, Ir. Suyatno, M.M. explained that his office has the vision to be the pioneer in utilizing community forests and plantations as the source of livelihood and economy activity of the people in the area.

In addition to the above objective, it is also to increase the contributions of community forests and plantations to the community’s and the local government’s economy as well as to boost community empowerment and participation in forest development meovement.

It is also to enhance the functions of community forests and plantations in sustaining the community’s livelihood through natural resources rehabilitation, conservation and preservation efforts, as well as protecting and securing community forests and plantations.

Main commodities
According to Suyatno, Pacitan has a huge size of possible community forest area. Around 67,324 hectares (ha) or 97.1% of forest in Pacitan is community forests. “While only 2.9% or 2010 ha is state-owned forests” he said.

Community forests in Pacitan yield around 250 m3 of wood per day; with teak, pine, albizia, acacia, and mahogany as the main products.

Suyatno also explained that farmer’s awareness on tree planting and maintenance had accelerated the development of forest area in the region. Furthermore, the markets for forest and plantation commodities are still as promising as before due to the diversity of forest plant species.

”The quality of our wood products is well-received by market. And local government supports are also available, as shown by the achievement of the Head of Pacitan District as the 1st National Winner in forest administrator competition,” he said.

LEI spokesperson, Indra Setia Dewi explained that Rimba Sari FMU in Pacitan District – declared by the Decision Making Expert Team to pass the certification with remark on March 3, 2010 – managed a total size of 1,073 hectares of community forest in 13 villages. The forest is dominated by teak, mahogany and acacia trees.

This success is the result of a multi-party collaboration, from among others the community which managed the community forest and also the Association for Economic and Social Study and Development (Perhimpunan untuk Studi dan Pengembangan Ekonomi dan Sosial — PERSEPSI) as the guarantor and partner.

“This serves as a proof that many community forests in Indonesia are managed sustainably and that communities in Indonesia are capable of implementing sustainable forest management practices,” Indra said.

Meanwhile, LEI’s Accreditation Manager, Gladi Hardiyanto added that Maisons du Monde (MdM) – a French-based company – had committed to use wooden furniture with ecolabel certificate from Indonesia.

The products include those extracted from LEI-certified community forests in Gunung Kidul District, Jogjakarta Special Province.

According to Gladi, PT Jawa Furni Lestari or commonly known as “Rumah Jawa”, which had passed the chain-of-custody certification using LEI scheme and obtained the chain-of-custody certificate from PT TuV International Indonesia, is an industry that collected products from community forests.

To promote environment conservation, LEI invited local journalists from various provinces for a field visit to directly observe the field activities, starting from the community forests to the manufacturing of LEI-CoC-certified wooden products.

For three days (21–23/4), LEI held a serie of workshops and field visits to community forests with the aim to provide an insight for the participants on sustainable forest management practice capable of supporting community development and environment conservation efforts.

In addition, this can also introduce LEI ecolabel certification in sustainable community forests and LEI-certified wood products in Wonogiri, Pacitan, and Gunung Kidul areas.(T.A035)

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UMHR Rimba Sari in Pacitan District – declared by the Decision Making Expert Team to pass the certification on March 3, 2010 – manages 1,073 hectares of community forest in 13 villages. This forest is dominated by teak, mahogany and acacia trees.  UMHR Wana Lestari – declared  to pass the certification on March 5, 2010 – manages 3,077 hectares of albizia-dominated forest, covering 9 villages.

The certification of the two UMHRs increases the number of community-based forest management units receiving sustainable forest certification through LEI scheme. The current number of certified community and indigenous community forest management units is 10 units with a total area of 20 thousand hectares. This serves as a proof that many community forests in Indonesia are managed in a sustainable way  and that communities in Indonesia are capable of implementing  sustainable forest management practices. However, such understanding is not widely acknowledged by the public and government due to  the insufficient pre-conditions capable of  supporting  sustainable forest. If all involved parties – the government, owners of community forests, business people, and partner – can work together, such pre-conditions will be created.

The success of the two UMHRs is the result of a multi-party collaboration namely community members as community forest maintainers, PERSEPSI as guarantor and partner, District Office of the Ministry of Forestry as partner and facilitator, East Java Province Provincial Office of the Ministry of Forestry, BPDAS Solo and the Center for Standardization and Environment of the Ministry of Forestry which provided supports in the form of funding and other  means  of supports. The above  parties have been collaborated to promote the potentials of community forest as the source of sustainable forest products that can be utilized in a responsible ways to increase both local and national economy.

It is expected  that other community-based forest management areas, such as indigenous community forest, HKm, HTR and Village Forest can also use PHBML-LEI certification scheme, which can be used as an instrument to gain market acknowledgment on community’s capacities  in managing forest areas.

PT. Mutu Agung Lestari as the Certification Body will soon announce the public summary and certification decision for the two management units.

LEI Communication Manager, Indra Setia Dewi explained to ANTARA in Bogor, Tuesday, that the two MU are Argo Bancak Community Forest, Lembeyan District, Magetan Regency, East Java and Wana Rejo Asri (Waras) in Sambirejo District, Sragen, East Java and their supporters.

Both have passed the assessment conducted by expert team of PT Mutu Agung Lestari on July 26, 2009.
“The Assessment team states that both management units have passed and they are entitled to receive ecolabel certificate, indicating that both MU are capable of managing their forest well and in a sustainable way,” said Indra.

LEI is a constituent based organization having a mission to achieve fair and sustainable forest management practices in Indonesia.

LEI Certification System aims to achieve fair and sustainable forest management in Indonesia, and at present more than 1,5 million hectares of Indonesian forest received sustainable forest certification from LEI.
He explained, Argo Bancak manages community forests of 600 hectares in three villages, while Waras manages community forest of 1,404 hectares in eight villages.(*)

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.

This system consists of database frame of trees used by Jawa Furni industry as the main furniture materials. “Using this database, one can trace back the origin of the furniture’s materials to the tree trunk. Unique numbered labels are attached to the trees and logged timber. “Of course all are done electronically and in a simple way,” said Cahyo Kusworo, the e-COC software designer.

The certified forest maintained by Wana Manunggal Lestari Cooperative in Gunungkidul District was chosen as the pilot project. Jawa Furni provides three computer sets to the cooperative to store the tree data. “This system is capable of bridging the ecolabel certified forests and the timber industry,” said Oki Widayanto, the executive director of Jawa Furni. The Chain of custody document recapitulation problems occurred until quite recenlty– from the forest site, sawmills and to the furniture industry– has been significantly addressed.

“The government needs to seek other alternatives from community forest plantation and non-wood forest products. Non-wood forest products generated from sustainable community based natural forest might contribute to state income through the carbon trade scheme,” said Indra S Dewi, LEI’s Communication and Advocacy Manager, Yesterday.

LEI is going to hold CBO Congress II today in Bogor. The Ministry of Forestry, MS. Kaban is scheduled to open the Congress. (bisnis/msb)

Should the Indonesian government wish to seriously handle the corruption cases, they should learn it from the dayak Iban in Sungai Utik in the regency of Embaloh Hulu of Kapuas Hulu District, West Kalimantan. The Ibans live as if the have no ambition of making excessive profits by conducting corrupted practices. They choose to live simple an in a communal way. The have no ambition of which the “modern people” possess nor to perform corruption practices. They never think of destroying the forest area in where they reside and manage. But one should not take the effort of the Ibans perform in preserving forest areas for granted. At the moment the Ibans reside in the katumenggungan of 7 villages namely Jalai Lintang’, Lauk Rugun,Mungguk,Pulan, Apan(Langgan Baru), Ungak, dan Sungai Tebelian

The Dayak Iban serious effort in preserving forest areas finally drew the attention of the central government. In Agugst 7, 2008, the son of Dayak Iban Bandi Alnak Ragai, also called Pak Janggut received the Sustainable Forest Management Certification for Kampung Sungai utik community. The certificate was handed over by MS. Kaban, the Forestry Minister.

Since 2004 to 2006 Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia (LEI), Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN), Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), and European Union have conducted collaboration work program in Kampung Sungai Utik, Embaloh Hulu Regency, Kapuas Hulu District of West Kalimantan Province. The work program involved 3 community extension organizations in assisting and preparing the Sustainable Forest Management standard implementation of which the traditional community groups are capable of playing the role.

Taufik Alimi, the Executive Director of LEI said that since March 2008, PT. Mutu Agung Lestari (PT.MAL) –acting as LEI accredited quality certification provider — has conducted series of Sustainable Community Based Forest Management assessments. Forest certification (ecolabel) assessment is an appreciation that what the Sungai Utik community has performed in preserving the forest area deserves to be acknowledged by granting them the Sustainable Forest Management Certificate .

The successful handing over Sustainable Forest Management Ecolabel Certificate was held in a Rumah Panjang located in ; Jl. Lintas Utara Putussibau-Badau Km. 77,8, Embaloh Hulu Regency, Kapuas Hulu District of Kalimantan Barat Province.

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