Legal timber trade thrives in community-run forestTags: indonesia positive example teak resources impact social community local people certifier
Indonesia - Amongst the neatly ranged young teak trees, Nasir, 41, was hard at work digging up weeds.
A thousand saplings, a meter tall and spaced two meters apart, flourish in this 0.75 hectare farm, planted to replace mature trees about to be harvested.
This is something Nasir does every weekend. He lives all of 30 meters away from his farm, and has ample time to tend to his other crops.
"I take care of the food crops, such as corn, sweet potatoes and other seasonal crops, during the week," Nasir told The Jakarta Post at his teak farm in Aoreo village, Lainea district in South Konawe regency, Southeast Sulawesi.
A father of three, Nasir has devoted much of his attention to the farm he inherited after his father, La Ido, died 12 years ago.
All his hard work is paying off: a cubic meter of teak, says Nasir, can sell for Rp 2 million (US$220). This is the price the Jaya Lestari Forest Cooperative (KHJL) has guaranteed its members for teak harvested legally from community-run forests.
"We have never been offered such a good price before," Nasir said.
KHJL is a grassroots community-based organization. Initially, its members consisted of 196 teak farmers in 12 villages in South Konawe. Currently it has 579 members in 24 villages in seven districts, encompassing a total forest area of 750 hectares.
It is now in the process of inducting 8,354 new members who will manage timber from state-owned forests designated as community forestry locations by the Forestry Ministry.
Abdul Mal, a manager at KHJL, said up to 1,666 trees, planted two meters apart, could be harvested from a one hectare plot of land.
KHJL has set a maximum buying price of Rp 2 million, depending on the size of the tree. For instance, a tree with a diameter of 15 to 19 centimeters is valued at Rp 1.75 million per cubic meter, while a tree with a diameter of 13 to 14 centimeters is valued at Rp 1.5 million per cubic meter.
"One could potentially harvest up to 200 cubic meters of wood from a one hectare plot. This would be worth about Rp 1 billion," Mal said.
KHJL has been awarded the globally approved SmartWood certification from the Forest Stewardship Council. To achieve this "ecolabel", it had to undergo a two-year authentication process.
Nasir said being a member of the cooperative had many advantages, such as fair prices, increased awareness of market mechanisms and open information on world teak prices.
Members are also trained to use the Global Positioning System.
"Before, I used to cut trees down arbitrarily. But after joining KHJL, I became aware of the proper procedure to fell trees," Nasir said.
Thanks to the SmartWood certification, the price of teak from the area can reach Rp 3 million per cubic meter -- a far cry from the earlier price of Rp 1 million, or the even lower Rp 300,000 on the black market.
Because of its track record in encouraging community-run forestry schemes and managing the timber trade from such schemes, KHJL has been appointed by a number of stakeholders, including the governor of Southeast Sulawesi, to manage a Forest Production Management Unit (KPHP) in South Konawe.
"KHJL has shown it is ready to manage sustainable forests on state land," said Suhendro from the community forestry commission at the provincial forestry office.
He added KHJL was instrumental in introducing sustainable forestry management schemes that directly involved local communities.
Warma, head of KHJL, said his organization was ready to manage the KPHP. The South Konawe community forestry commission has actively lobbied for the governor to expedite the granting of much-needed documents to KHJL.
The documents are prerequisites to the awarding of a permit from the forestry minister for a community forestry management area.
"After waiting for almost two years, we have yet to receive the permit from the government," Warma said.
© Jakarta Post (Indonesia) -- 2008-06-06 ...
