This issue was conveyed during the Public Consultation on Wood Legality Verification System titled: How to Guarantee the Legality of Indonesian wood Products, in Santika Hotel, Jakarta, Wednesday (10/9)
Taufiq Alimi, the Executive Director of Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute (LEI) said that it is difficult for Indonesian wood products to enter importer country markets such as Japan, United States, Mexico and other European countries. It is often that Indonesian wood products are considered as generated from illegal logging activities. “In order to successfully enters the market, it is often that the Indonesian products are labeled as other country’s (such as Vietnam) made,” Taufiq explained.

Therefore, an efficient, credible and fair institution is required to convince exporter countries Indonesia is capable of producing legal wood products.
“It will be clear in the future that non WVLS labeled products originated from Indonesia are illegal products and bring no profit for business sector,” he said.
He said that by implementing the legality standard, it is expected that all illegal fees imposed to the business sector can be eliminated which can lead to a more efficient production process. Aside from that, there will be continuous monitoring system performed by civil community for the operation of legality verification.

In line with Taufiq’s opinion, the Director General of Production of the Forestry Department, Dr.Ir. Hadi S. Pasaribu, said that with the existence a legality institution, the importer countries will have no doubts that all Indonesian wood products are legal. “Each country has its own standard and regulation and they only receive legal wood originated from sustainable managed forest area,” he said.

Hadi, who is also the vice chairman of the National Directive for WLVS Institutional Development, added that the WLVS is expected to reduce the rate of forest destruction due to illegal logging activities. “We hope that we can establish this institution by the end of the year so that it can operate next year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Robianto Koestomo from the Indonesian Wood Panel Association hopes that this institution will not cause more complexity to the bureaucracy and raise of expenses so that it will not disrupt the business sector. “In general, we appreciate this institution’” he said.

The idea of setting up the wood legality standard commenced from the MoU between the Indonesian and British governments on August 9, 2002 on the effort to battle illegal logging. The MoU covers an action plan to develop wood legality standard in Indonesia. The process to set up the standard through several phases and involved many parties such as lai LEI, Telapak, AMAN, Forestry Department, BRIK, and APHI.
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“We need to support the development of WLVS and it also needs to be immediately implemented to show the international community that Indonesia is committed to battle illegal logging activities, and to put sustainable forest management into practice,” said Hadi Pasaribu, the Director General of Forestry Product Development, Forestry Department in Jakarta last week.

Meanwhile the spokes person of Indonesian Ecolabel Institute (LEI), Indra Setia Dewi explained that in the context the needs to overcome illegal logging problem, the Indonesian and the British Governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding to battle illegal logging activities, on April 13, 2002. (Bisnis/et)

“The system consists of procedure, standard and institutional matter of which a lttle different compared to the conventional certification,” he said on Tuesday (27/2)
“The essence of the phased certification is the arrangement of action plan in various phases to enable a forest management unit acquires a fair and sustainable certificate,” he added.

Various observations and researches The Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute have performed indicated that the forest condition is experiencing a severe rate of destruction due to illegal logging activity, forest fire, illegal land occupation and other destructive activities.
The situation gets worse despite the government’s efforts such as policy improvement, law enforcement, advocacy, land rehabilitation, etc to establish a good and sustainable forest management practice.
“In order to assist the government in reducing the various problem, LEI launches its phased certification system,” Taufiq said.

The phased certification system provides the opportunity for the management unit to gradually manage itself. The system is better compared to the previous system of which focus is on complying various requirements and indicators of forest management standard in one assessment at the same time.
The management planning is performed by the management unit based on the inputs provided by various partners (stakeholders) that share the same commitment in addressing the production, social and environmental problems.

Taufiq added that LEI and all of its constituents such as the government, environmental activist, academics and business sector are committed to put the best effort in providing guarantee so that the pjased certification system can be operated and achieve the main goal of creating sustainable forest areas.
“However, an independent third party is required in order to maintain the implementation of objective certification processes.

The third party will assess the impact generated from the implemented strategy, the rate of success and achievement towards a sustainable forest management practices. It is hoped that at the last period of the system, Indonesia can achieve the standard of sustainable forest management practice..
At the moment there are 11 management units and one industry that have been certified by LEI managing a total forest area size of 1,049.711,37 ha or approximately 1,5 % of the total Indonesian forest area. LEI is a non-profit independent institution with no political interest. The institution goal is solely to restore the sustainable and green function of the forest. (T.Ve/Tr/toeb/b)

Proses pendefinisian standar legalitas kayu, pengembangan kelembagaan dan sistem verifikasinya telah dimulai sejak tahun 2003, proses ini dilandasi oleh MoU Indonesia – Inggris dalam penanganan masalah illegal logging di Indonesia. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) memimpin pelaksanaan pekerjaan ini dan telah melakukan beberapa workshop multipihak termasuk ujicoba lapangan. Hasil proses ini adalah draft standar legalitas yang terdiri dari prinsip, kriteria, indikator dan panduan verifikasinya, yang selanjutnya disebut dengan Draft Standar Legalitas Kayu versi 1.0

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