FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Certification ‘key’ to better forest management

Certification ‘key’ to better forest management

A PRODUCTION line for certified plantation forest management and wood processing could be the solution to reduce illegal logging, experts have said.

Laos and Indonesia’s keen efforts to certify their logging industries have paved the way for access to wider markets, better timber prices, and less deforestation and illegal logging.
Six timber-processing businesses in Laos have been certified and five million hectares of plantation forest has been certified in Indonesia.
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, 129 million hectares of forest has been lost since 1990 worldwide, and from 2010 to 2015 some 3.3 million hectares was cut down each year on average – with illegal logging a cause of deforestation.
Yingyod Lapwong, a biologist at Prince of Songkla University, stated that plantation forests could save natural forests from unregulated and unsustainable logging.
“Many people still have misconceptions about forest conservation. Good conservation does not totally forbid forestry resource usage, but to use it carefully and sustainably,” Yingyod said.
He said plantation forests could result in a steady flow of wood to the market and keep prices low, so demand for timber was reduced from the conserved forests and the ecologies of forests were protected. 
However, he cautioned that all industry stakeholders should monitor the entire timber production line to ensure plantations were not encroaching on preserved forests and no wood from preserved forests was illegally branded as legal timber from plantations.
Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade programme manager Allison Lewin said that forestry certifications could be used as an assurance, indicating to customers that they were buying products from an environmentally friendly and zero-deforestation production chain.
“The business will have a greater chance accessing wider markets, especially in the European Union and the [other] Western nations, as they are the big timber markets, where the customers have high awareness on environmental issues. And normally, but not all the time, they [producers] will get a better timber price when they get the certification,” Lewin said.
She said the certificate granters monitored forestry industries and supply chains to ensure that ecological damage was minimised to meet the qualifications of the certification.
The leading certifications include the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Forest Conservation Programme of Scientific Certification System and the Responsible Forestry Programme of the Soil Association.
Many countries in Asean participate in the initiative, said Henry Purnomo, a professor at Indonesia’s Bogor Agricultural University and a scientist for Indonesia’s Centre for International Forestry Research.
Purnomo said certification provided many social and financial benefits for small and medium-sized enterprises.
“As Indonesia already has five million hectares of certified forest, the producers can raise the cost up to 30 per cent after getting the certification, and we are aiming to increase the number of certified forests in the country,” he said.
“The certified forest products help increase the income of many SMEs and improves many people’s livelihoods while ensuring that plantation forests have good management and benefit ecosystems.”
Lao Wood Processing Industry Association president Thongsavanh Soulignamat said Laos had 3.1 million hectares of plantation forests under a sustainable forest-management scheme and six wood-processing companies already had FSC chain-of-custody certification for “transparent” timber supply chain.
“Up to 40 per cent of the poor people in Laos depend of forests for their livelihoods and with better forest management, they can still use the forests to support their lives while the forest can be used for sustainable logging,” Thongsavanh said.
He said that the Laos government had a plan to increase forest areas in the country using well-managed plantation forests alongside preserved forests.
Thailand’s Forest Industry Organisation (FIO) controls 1.15 million rai (184,000 hectares) of plantation forests nationwide, with 300,000 rai of the total figure FSC certified.
“We aim to certify all of our plantation forests under the international standard, but we are now doing it step-by-step,” FIO managing director Pipat Chaninthayutthawong said.
“We want to ensure that our planted forests are well-managed and can supply the market with wood from sustainable sources, not trees from preserved forest.”
 
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