Despite buyers increasingly preferring to purchase certified timber products, implementation of the Indonesian timber legality verification system, SVLK, among small firms in Bali continues to be hampered. Source: The Jakarta Post/Bali Daily
It is hampered by the lack of synergy among relevant agencies in the central and provincial government.
SVLK is the mandatory timber legality verification system stipulated is to ensure that Indonesian wood-based products sold in the international market are not derived from illegal logging or illegal trading.
Indonesia expects to fully implement the SVLK by early next year.
“For SVLK implementation in small businesses, we have not seen any synergy between relevant agencies in the provincial administration. We’ve seen good attention on this issue coming from the Trade and Industry Agency. However, the Forestry Agency has not done much and remains idle,” said the chairman of the Association of Indonesian Community Forestry Entrepreneurs (AWKMI), I Gusti Putu Armada.
Armada suggested a reward-and-punishment system for the community forests that participate in the SVLK and those that do not.
For example, Armada, suggested that a reward might come in the form of easier access to soft loans provided by the Forestry Ministry for community forests that already adhered to the SVLK.
Bali Forestry Agency has recorded around 9735 hectares of community forest spread across the island.
However, only some 64 hectares of forest in Buleleng has been certified. Meanwhile, Bali Industry and Trade Agency demonstrated that out of 252 Bali-based exporters specializing in wooden handicrafts, only 18 had timber certification.
So far, seven small businesses and 72 owners of 64 hectares of community forest have registered with the Buleleng-chapter of the Association of Small Industry Craftsmen (APIK Buleleng) to become the first woodbased small businesses in Bali to obtain the timber certification (V-legal) since October 2012.
“There have been many buyers that have asked [Indonesian] exporters whether their products have passed the SVLK,” said Armada, who is also chairman of APIK Buleleng.
Armada, cited a number of benefits of the SVLK for community forest owners, including a better tree database and healthier management of pre-and-post harvesting of community forests.
“Through the SVLK, we can realize sustainable forestry, where for every tree being harvested, we are obliged to plant another,” said Armada, adding that with SVLK certification, tree owners would be able to prevent the additional cost of paying a fine to the forest police whenever harvesting trees.
Armada expressed his confidence that with a strong database and certification in hand, his association would be able to form a bridge between timber producers and small industries and their potential markets, both domestic and overseas, as well as obtaining better sales value.
Armada acknowledged that taking part in the SVLK was not cheap and urged more small businesses to merge with forest owners in each of their respective regions.
“The Forestry Ministry has allocated SVLK funding to assist these small businesses and tree farmers, as long as they are willing to build a community, just like we did in Buleleng,” he said.
Separately, head of the forest product development division in Bali’s Forestry Agency, I Ketut Subawa, had previously said that identifying community forests around the island was a difficult task, which was the domain of agencies at the regency level, rather than the provincial forestry agency.
“As of today, we have only received a report that Karangasem is the second regency, after Buleleng, in the process of identifying their community forests.
In Bali, most community forests are not only planted with timber trees, but also coconut and other trees that do not require certification. So, identifying which community forests must be certified is not easy,” said Subawa.
“Preventing these community forest owners from chopping down trees as they wish is already a difficult job, let alone encouraging them to create a database of their trees for SVLK certification,” he stated.
