Ecolabeling agency to audit operations of 16 timber firms

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Ecolabeling Agency (LEI) will audit the operations of at least 16 timber companies this year to ascertain if they deserve to receive ecolabeling certification, the agency's chairman Emil Salim said here yesterday.

Emil said the ecolabeling audits would take place on a voluntary basis.

He said the ecolabeling audit would benefit timber companies because in the future submitting to such an audit would become a prerequisite for selling timber products overseas.

"The ecolabeling assessments will start in July," Emil told journalists after a meeting with Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution.

But Emil refused to name the 16 timber companies who would submit to the inspection, saying that only the names of companies which passed the test would be announced.

He said the audits would be conducted using a harmonized formula agreed between the Indonesian Ecolabeling Agency, the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations, and the Association of Indonesian Forest Concessionaires, all of which previously had different ecolabeling standards.

He said the three agencies completed the standardization of ecolabeling procedures and criteria last year. If companies meet the criteria of the new Sustainable Forest Management Certification System they are awarded an ecolabeling certificate known as an SNI 5000.

LEI was established in 1996 to promote sustainable forest management by assessing Indonesian timber companies operations.

Emil said that ecolabeling certification would be needed to enter into trade with European countries and the United States.

He added that these markets would become increasingly important to Indonesian exporters because the traditional markets of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea had cut imports from the Indonesian forest sector as a result of their own economic problems.

Indonesian timber companies will have to sell their products to other markets if they want to survive, Emil said.

"Although ecolabeling is not compulsory for forest concessionaires, they may not be able to access some foreign markets without certification," he said.

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), an organization which groups consumer and producer countries, believes that ecolabeling will become a prerequisite for tropical timber producers to gain access to international markets after the year 2000.

At least 19 countries have used ecolabeling since 1977, including some members of the European Union, Canada, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, India, South Korea, Singapore, Croatia, Taiwan and Israel.

Emil said that LEI was currently preparing 80 assessors who would later be deployed to forest areas to asses the performance of the 16 companies.

"Our assessors are professional experts who will independently assess the management practices of forest concessionaires," he said.

Emil said that he had reported on the preparations for the assessment to the Minister of Forestry and Plantations earlier yesterday.

He said the minister was very supportive of the program and suggested the agency place greater emphasis on timber companies' activities designed to enhance the quality of life of local people living in the forest areas.

"The minister said that timber companies have to improve the lives of local people if their operations are to be in line with the principle that the forests are for the people," Emil said.

The director general of forest utilization, Harnanto H.M., said last month that only 26 of the 70 forest concessionaires assessed by LEI during its pilot phase in 1996 were considered "adequately prepared" to meet ecolabeling requirements while none were considered "fully prepared". (gis)