Groups seek to combat illegal timber trade

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.