Only one firm gets ecological certification

Only one firm gets ecological certification

JAKARTA (JP): Only one of 16 timber companies audited by the
Indonesian Ecolabeling Agency (LEI) is qualified to receive its
certification, the agency found in a pilot project conducted
since late last year.

The agency's director, Mubariq Ahmad, said on Friday that PT
Diamond Raya Timber, which owns forest concessions in Riau and
Jambi, was alone in passing the criteria for sustainable forest
management.

"One of the companies failed, one is pending and the remaining
are in process," he said after the signing of a cooperation
agreement between LEI and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) of
Toronto, Canada.

Ahmad said the audit was part of the pilot project carried out
by the agency for the introduction of the ecolabeling system in
the country.

He said cooperation with the Canadian company will strengthen
LEI's certification process and improve its international
reputation.

Under the two-year agreement, LEI and FSC will conduct
certification of forest areas which would allow certified
companies to use the labels of both organizations on their wood
products.

Ahmad endorsed the joint certification program as a practical
way of encouraging and speeding up the establishment of other
local certifiers.

"After the two-year cooperation, LEI will stop providing
certification services and concentrate on becoming the accreditor
for the certifiers."

Ahmad added that the criteria used in auditing forest
concessionaires and timber companies were based on the standards
agreed to by LEI, the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations and
the Association of Indonesian Forest Concessionaires (APHI).

"The SNI 5000 is the national standardization and will be used
as the only criterion by all certifiers," Ahmad said.

LEI is a non-profit organization established in 1996 to
promote sustainable forest management through assessing
operations of Indonesian timber companies.

Emil Salim, chairman of the agency's board of trustees, said
that timber companies had no choice but to gain ecolabeling
certification to survive amid the growing environmental
selectivity of the global market.

"This certification will not only boost our wood industry but
also hamper illegal logs exports." The former environment
minister added that the certification would also facilitate the
government's efforts to trace the origin of log shipments.

Emil said the ecolabeling certification will be needed by
local timber companies in entering foreign markets especially the
United States and Europe.

Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo, member of the LEI board of
trustees and a former minister of forestry and plantations, said
that the ecolabeling audit would benefit timber companies because
they would have to conform to the prerequisite in the future for
international trade.

The International Tropical Timber Organization 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. (01)