Timber firms urged to fall in line on ecolabeling issue

JAKARTA (JP): The country's timber companies have no choice but to gain ecolabeling certification to survive amid the growing environmental fastidiousness of the global market, analysts said here yesterday.

Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute's (LEI) executive director Mubariq Ahmad and PT Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) International Certification Services Indonesia's president Erik Roger said the fall in demand for timber products in the Asian market due to the monetary crisis had forced the country's timber industry to look for alternative buyers in Europe and the United States.

Lack of ecolabeling presented an obstacle, they said.

"In the past, they could pay no heed to ecolabeling certificates since they mostly focused on the Asian market which did not make it a strict requirement," Ahmad said at a seminar on forest certification and labeling of wood products.

"But such indifference is over because they have to go to European and U.S. markets which are strict in demanding the certificates."

The seminar was organized by PT SGS International Certification Services Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Geneva- based SGS group.

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), which groups timber consuming and producing countries, has announced ecolabeling will become a prerequisite for tropical timber products to gain access to international markets after 2000.

But, Roger said, the majority of buyers in Europe and the U.S. had already made ecolabeling a prerequisite or preferential item in their choice for orders.

Government data shows 70 percent of the country's 470 concessionaires surveyed last year were not prepared for the implementation of ecolabeling in 2000.

Ahmad said there were 22 concessionaires who had applied for ecolabeling certificates with LEI, many of which did so due to pressure from their buyers.

LEI will start auditing 16 companies this month to determine if they deserve ecolabeling certificates, he said.

He refused to name the companies.

He said LEI would audit the companies using a formula agreed upon last year by the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations, the Association of Indonesian Forest Concessionaires (APHI) and non- governmental organizations.

But he said LEI's ecolabeling certificates, known as SNI 5000, have yet to be recognized by the international forest management body Forest Stewardship Council (FCS), which would render them internationally acceptable.

FCS was founded by timber users, environmental organizations, traders and their representatives in Toronto, Canada, in 1993 to set principles and criteria for good forest management in terms of environmental, social and economic impact.

Ahmad said LEI, with the assistance of experts from SGS and Smartwood, was currently trying to get FCS's recognition of its standards, with a decision expected by the middle of next year.

He said LEI would stop acting as a certifier in the long term but only focus on setting ecolabeling standards for various sectors in the forest-related industry and accredit certifiers to operate in Indonesia.

Roger said SGS hoped to get LEI's recognition of its ecolabeling program called Qualifor in the middle of next year to smooth its operations in Indonesia.

He said SGS's Qualifor program, already present in 20 countries, was recognized by FCS to the effect that SGS's ecolabeling certification may carry both Qualifor and FCS seals. (jsk)