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)