Other indicators for legal timber trade of Indonesia

Corruption Perception Index

/100

A country's score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
Source: Transparency International

Bans & quota

A presidential instruction signed in May 2015 prevents new logging licenses being granted for a further two years, then on July 2017 new President Instruction signed to extend the moratorium of new concession license, which is almost identical to the previous moratorium. Export of roundwood and rough sawn timber for all species are banned to protect domestic wood processing industries, although there has been some discussion to review that policy with a restricted manner.

CITES and protected species

There are some tree species listed on CITES Appendix II from Indonesia.

Ramin (Gonystylus spp.). The CITES listing applies to all parts and derivatives of the tree, except seeds; seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterile containers; and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants.
Agarwood (Gyrinops spp.). Indonesia has a quota for this species of 5000 kg in 2015. The CITES listing applies to all parts and derivatives except: seeds and pollen; seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterile containers; fruits; leaves; exhausted agarwood powder, including compressed powder in all shapes; and finished products packaged and ready for retail trade; this exemption does not apply to beads, prayer beads and carvings.
Agarwood (Aquilaria spp.). Indonesia has a quota for this species of 178500 kg in 2015. The CITES listing applies to all parts and derivatives except: seeds and pollen; seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterile containers; fruits; leaves; exhausted agarwood powder, including compressed powder in all shapes; and finished products packaged and ready for retail trade; this exemption does not apply to beads, prayer beads and carvings.
Himalayan yew (Taxus wallichiana). The CITES listing applies to all parts and derivatives except: seeds and pollen; and finished products packaged and ready for retail trade.
Serpentine wood (Rauvolfia serpentine). The CITES listing applies to all parts and derivatives except: seeds and pollen; and finished products packaged and ready for retail trade.

In addition to the CITES-listed species there are some tree species which are protected by national law. These species are locally known as Tengkawang and are all member of the Shorea family.

Shorea beccariana
Shorea compressa
Shorea gysberstiana
Shorea lepidota
Shorea martiana
Shorea mexistopteryx
Shorea micrantha
Shorea palembanica
Shorea pinanga
Shorea semiris
Shorea singkawang
Shorea stenopten
Shorea stenoptera

National action on timber legality

Indonesia and the EU entered into negotiations for a voluntary partnership agreement in March 2007. The Agreement was signed in September 2013 and ratified in April 2014. On 15 November 2016 Indonesia began issuing FLEGT licenses to verified legal timber products to be exported to the EU. The FLEGT license, issued by a FLEGT – licensing authority, accompanies shipments of timber exported from Indonesia to EU member states, to certify that the timber has been harvested, transported, processed and traded according to Indonesian law. This achievement follows the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) where only legal timber can enter EU market.

Indonesia has developed a national timber legality assurance system called SVLK (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu). The SVLK licensing authorities currently issue ‘V-legal’ licences to accompany exports of verified legal wood. When the timber legality assurance system is operating as described in the VPA, the licensing authorities will issue FLEGT licence to accompany exports of verified legal timber destined for the EU. An agreement by Indonesia and the European Union (EU) has been reached, to issue the world's first Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) timber license as a major achievement in the fight against illegal logging (FLEGT.org).

Indonesia will continue to issue V-legal documents for other export destinations. Issuance V-Legal documents are submitted in the online system of the Ministry of Forestry, which connects automatically to the system of the Ministry of Trade and custom authority.

Third party certification

Mandatory third party certification

Indonesian forest regulations require that forestry business units must obtain a mandatory assessment of sustainable forest management for a concession license holder:

If the concession license holder has been operating more than 3 years: PHPL certificate (Pengelolaan Hutan Produksi Lestari)
If the concession license holder has been operating less than 3 years: legality verification system, SVLK-certificate (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu)

The assessment must be carried out by an independent third-party certification body that has been accredited by the National Accreditation Committee or Komite Akreditasi Negara (KAN). Manufacturers of timber products must also obtain SVLK as a requirement to be able to issue V-legal document for its product shipped out from Indonesia.

The PHPL certificate is valid for 5 years and every year the concession license holder has to go through a surveillance audit to ensure it continues to comply with the regulation set by government. The SVLK certificate is only valid for 3 years and after 3 years the concession license holder must be assessed against mandatory assessment of sustainable forest management PHPL (Pengelolaan Hutan Produksi Lestari). For SVLK certificate in the downstream industry, the certificate is valid for 3 years and every year the manufacturer must go through a surveillance audit cycle. Particularly for small and medium enterprise (SME’s) within the SVLK system, the system allows SME’s to opt for a group certification and the surveillance audit is only conducted once in 2 years in order to be cost-effective for the audit. There are 25 certification bodies (LVLK/Lembaga Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu) for SVLK and 14 certification bodies for PHPL (Pengelolaan Hutan Produksi Lestari), comprising companies of local and foreign origin.

Voluntary third party certification

As of January 2019 to date, 2,473,468 ha of forest areas have obtained FSC FM certificate in Indonesia for 34 FMU (Forest Management Units), comprising of natural forest, plantations and private forests from communities. This figure has increased significantly over the past 10 years due to the high-demand of FSC certified products in the global market. About 283 FSC-CoC certificate are currently valid in the secondary and tertiary timber industry.

Another PEFC endorsed voluntary scheme, called IFCC (Indonesian Forestry Certification Cooperation) has certified 3,912,747 ha of forest areas of as of 31 December 2019 (PEFC, 2020) where all certified operations are pulp and paper plantations. Despite the increasing number of certified forest areas under the voluntary scheme, this achievement is not well-acknowledged by government as it is considered as a competitor for its mandatory PHPL assessment.

A somewhat different certification system is the Certisource Legality Assurance System (CLAS), which is thus far only used in Indonesia. This certification system is a voluntary for legality verification and the standard is developed based on both WWF-GFTN and Indonesian legality criteria. The system uses the traditional chain of custody auditing approach, supported by DNA tracking technologies. CertiSource policy requires concessions and sawmills to demonstrate a concrete commitment to reach sustainable forest management certification.

Other efforts that have been made on forest certification in Indonesia were by Bureau Veritas Origin and Legality of Wood (OLB) standard.

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