Read Indonesia’s story of how they became the first ever FLEGT-certified country.
Environment
Forest management aims to guarantee the forest’s sustainable economic, social and environmental purpose. Legal logging reduces carbon emissions from wanton forest degradation and will enhance forest carbon stock. Where the ecosystem has been restored, there is the maintenance and growth of biodiversity with species such as the rhinoceros hornbill, the agile gibbon and the slow loris beginning to thrive again. In order to encourage sustainability, the forest area in Indonesia is divided up between 18% devoted to conservation, 25% that’s protected and 57% to production.
Sustainability is also enhanced through the promotion of silviculture. There are many different types of silviculture using different methods of tree cutting – selective cutting, clear cutting, strip cutting – but they are all practised with a view to tending forest rather than seeing it simply as a material resource.
Under the SVLK, state forests are certified against the Sustainable Forest Management Certificate (PHPL). PHPL sets out key preconditions for sustainability under SVLK, focusing on the social, production and ecological aspects of forest management. This includes long term forest plans for harvest and regeneration and implementation of protected zones for species and habitats. Social aspects include conflict resolution, labour rights and fair and equitable benefit distribution.
Economic
With good regulation in place, the economy benefits, not just from the money that can be reinvested from the taxation of legal timber, or from the earnings going directly to the local communities, but also businesses who can invest in the production process and increased skills and capacity.
FLEGT gives access to global markets and helps the economic development of the country.
Social
Social forestry tackles the issues of landscape and ownership, improves the skills and knowledge of local people and considers the different scales of community management.
The Indonesian Social Forestry Initiative allocated 12.7 million hectares of forests for community-based forest management. This ensures that indigenous communities have a stake in managing sustainable forests, whether that is in state, private or customary law forests. In many developing countries with large forests, official law can sometimes conflict with customary law that has developed within forestry communities over time. This initiative helps balance those interests.