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Analysts stressed on Monday the need for the country's
forestry-related companies to speed up the adoption of ecolabeling in
orderto maintain their export market and ensure the sustainability of
forest resources.
World Wide Fund for Nature's executive director Agus Purnomo said most
importers and consumers in developed countries demanded that timber
products be derived from sustainably managed forests.
"The market mechanism will promote the adoption of ecolabeling," he
said in a one-day seminar held by the WWF.
Purnomo added the international market would select timber companies
which fulfilled ecological standards, but shun those which damaged
forest resources.
"The requirement of ecolabeling will promote sustainable forest
management," he said.
According to the International Tropical Timber Organization,
ecolabeling will become a prerequisite for tropical timber producers to
gain access to international markets, especially in the United States
and Europe, after 2000.
WWF's deputy director Togu Manurung said many businesspeople believed
theadoption of ecolabeling would pose additional problems to timber
firms which were suffering from an acute shortage of logs.
Manurung noted figures from the forestry ministry showing the wood
processing industry's total installed capacity was 60 million cubic
meters,while sustainable harvests of forests in the country could
produce only 20 million cubic meters of wood.
"The severe shortage has prompted illegal logging even in conservation
areas," he added.
WWF estimated the rate of illegal forest clearing at 2.4 million
hectaresannually, up from 900,000 hectares in the late 1980s.
An executive of the Indonesian Ecolabeling Agency, Hariadi
Kartodihardjo,told the seminar that only one of 16 timber companies
audited by the agencyobtained certification, but three more would
receive it in the near future. He cited
mismanagement in the national forestry sector, saying the touting of
the country's huge amount of forest resources led to wasteful
exploitation.
"The ecolabeling should be promoted as a means of further developing
the timber industry through sustainable resource management."
He said the imposition of ecolabeling would also make the supervision
andmonitoring of forest management more transparent.
However, he added that the government should pioneer the adoption of
ecolabeling.
"Without political will, the government is unlikely to make any
progress in this matter."
The Indonesian Plywood Association requested a clear standard on
ecolabeling certification by taking into account the diverse forest
conditions and different interpretations on sustainable forest
management.
Ideally, the association said in a presentation at the seminar, the
standard should meet two requirements of being applicable to specific
localforestry conditions and acceptable to the international market.
It said since the ISO 14001 standard on environmental management
already encompassed sustainable forest management as well as production
stages, thecertification should also be classified as green labeling
(ecolabeling).
The association argued that different ecological standards would only
addto production costs, in addition to the complex process of
certifying firms.
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