Groups seek to combat illegal timber trade

Rendi A. Witular, Yogyakarta

Top government officials and environmentalists gathered here on Monday for a three-day conference to address the problems of illegal timber product trading, trans-border haze pollution and the reforestation of degraded land.

The Ministry of Forestry's director general of forest conservation and rehabilitation, Koes Saparjadi, said the workshop, which is organized by the Asian Forest Partnership (AFP), was expected to address regional forestry problems faced by members of the AFP, including Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Japan.

"Through this forum, we will ask Asian countries, such as China and Malaysia, to cooperate in preventing trading in illegal timber given that these countries often import such timber from Indonesia," said Koes on the sidelines of the forum on Monday.

He said that many Asian countries were reluctant to cooperate in tackling these problems as they involved businesses worth billions of dollars.

Indonesia and Malaysia have often been at odds with each other over the issue, with Indonesia refusing to hold bilateral talks unless Malaysia admits that it imports and trades in timber illegally felled in Indonesia.

Koes said the conclusions of the workshop would be brought up at the fourth AFP meeting in Japan from Dec. 8 until Dec. 10. There, members of the organization were expected to agree on a number of issues including the certification of wood-based products, synchronization of customs procedures for the trade in these products, and a uniform definition of illegal wood-based products.

The AFP promotes sustainable forest management in Asia, focusing particularly on five pressing issues, namely, the control of illegal logging, control of forest fires, rehabilitation and reforestation of degraded land, good governance and forestry law enforcement, and developing capacities for effective forest management.

The partnership acts as a catalyst for the initiatives that are now in progress in the region by increasing synergies and reducing program duplication. It provides a formal framework for the exchange of information and experiences in an effort to combine national, bilateral or multilateral and regional initiatives.

The AFP was launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. It is one of over 200 partnerships for sustainable development registered with the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development.

Partners of the AFP include governments, intergovernmental organizations and members of civil society, with leading partners including the government of Japan, the government of Indonesia, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

Cifor director general David Kaimowitz said the trade in illegal timber was a complex problem to solve as it was related to strong economic interests and international relations between neighboring countries.

"To meet real progress you have to build strong confidence and trust between countries to sit in a dialog. The very positive thing in this forum is that all the countries have been open with each other and all recognize that the illegal trading of timber is a problem," said Kaimowitz.

Kaimowitz said the progress made so far by the AFP forum was "slow but solid", given the fact that as yet there had been no concrete actions agreed upon by its members to tackle the trade in illegal timber.

However, each member country had agreed that a dialog was necessary, and more groups were becoming involved in the effort to define the specific actions that each country should take to resolve the problems, he said.