The EU and Indonesia embarked on an ambitious journey to improve forest governance and promote trade in legal timber over a decade ago. Recently the two parties celebrated the third anniversary of a key result in that work, the launch of the world’s first ‘FLEGT’ licensing scheme, guaranteeing the legality of timber products exported from Indonesia to the EU. Source: Timberbiz
Indonesia’s timber legality assurance system that issues the FLEGT licences ensures that the country exports only verified legal timber and timber products. In 2018 alone, Indonesia issued almost 39,000 licences for shipments going to EU Member States, worth more than US$1.2 billion.
The licensing scheme is a result of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) that the EU and Indonesia ratified in 2014. The EU and Indonesia jointly oversee the VPA’s implementation and work to continually improve its systems and procedures.
The lessons from Indonesia’s FLEGT licensing experience, focusing on system design, implementation, capacity and communications, have been outlined in a new EU FLEGT Facility briefing.
Expert and stakeholder opinions collected show evidence on the positive impacts of the Indonesian timber legality assurance system known as SVLK and the partnership between Indonesia and the EU.
The VPA process has been found to have positively contributed to a more coherent legal framework across Indonesia’s timber sector, with actions to combat illegal activity being more strongly enforced and more credible today than they were before VPA implementation.
The VPA process has also had a positive contribution to improving collaboration between members of Indonesia’s civil society and government, which has been key to strengthening transparency, accountability, awareness, more systematical enforced sanctions and the fight against corruption.
Findings are also that the voices and opinions of many local communities and indigenous people in Indonesia are not only better listened to, but also receive more consideration when decisions are adopted and implemented on the forests where they live.
Research conducted by the Indonesian Network of Independent Monitoring (Jaringan Pemantau Independen Kehutanan or JPIK) in East Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan in 2015 to 2017 shows that the Indonesia’s sustainability standard PHPL, which is part of the VPA, contributes to reducing deforestation rates in both regions.
Areas that are complying with PHPL standards have a significantly lower deforestation rate compared with other areas.
