WWF urges global firms to stop buying illegal plywood from RI
WWF urges global firms to stop buying illegal plywood from RI
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is currently running a
campaign to urge global companies to stop buying plywood from
Indonesian firms suspected of retaining illegal logs and damaging
the environment.
An executive from WWF Indonesia, Agus Setyarso, told The
Jakarta Post on Monday that currently WWF was in the process of
lobbying companies abroad to take part in what he called the
global forestry trade network.
Agus explained that the network would consist only of plywood
buyers which had committed to reject Indonesian plywood products
drawn from illicit resources.
"The program is still being developed and we hope that it can
be applied in 2006. We are hoping that the possible risk of
losing global customers will push local plywood firms to
seriously take care of the environment," Agus said.
He said companies included in the network would only receive
logs accompanied with an environmental certificate, issued by an
independent auditor. By doing so, the public would be able to
trace the origin of the logs.
Agus was optimistic that many companies would join the network
because global firms are becoming more sensitive to environmental
issues due to pressure from non-governmental organizations, as
recently shown in the case of pulp giant Asia Pulp and Paper
(APP).
APP's major Japanese customers -- among them copy machine
company Ricoh Co. -- threatened to stop buying plywood from the
company unless it cleaned up its environmental record in
Indonesia.
Stung by the action, APP signed an agreement with WWF last
week to set aside 58,500 hectares of its concessions in Riau
province as a conservation area.
The company also pledged to tighten up procedures to stop
illegally logged wood ending up in its mills and to publish a
plan to make its forestry operations self-sustaining over the
next few years.
Agus said that APP's move was commendable and urged other
local companies to do the same thing.
"Without the initiative of the company itself, such an
agreement would not have taken place. We hope other companies
follow the same steps," he said.
Indonesia is the largest plywood producer in the world with
some 80 percent of output exported, providing nearly 100 percent
in foreign exchange revenues, because the import component is
very small.
From 1993 to 1999, foreign exchange earnings from this
industry averaged around US$5 billion per year, which accounted
for 9.5 percent of the country's total foreign exchange revenue
each year.
However, due to a shortage in raw materials, earnings from the
industry plummeted to an average of $2.3 billion per year during
the last three years.
The government, under pressure from international donors, is
determined to protect the country's forest areas, which have been
heavily damaged due to over-exploitation by forest-related
industries such as plywood and pulp.
The government has limited the timber supply quota at home to
only 6.89 million cubic meters, compared to more than 12 million
cubic meters in previous years.
The restriction has forced the plywood industry to cut down
its production capacity by up to 60 percent.
Currently, there are some 128 plywood companies operating in
the country, employing some 16 million workers and with total
investments reaching $27 billion.