Verdens største producent af teaktræ – et indonesisk, statsejet selskab på øen Java – er igen tildelt et “sustainable forest management” (SFM) certifikat, som skaffer gode eksportpenge i hus. Men selskabets forhold til millioner af indfødte skovfolk har en lang og konfliktfyldt historie.
BANGKOK, 14 May 2012 (IRIN): “Land rights have long been a source of violence on Java,” Rhett Butler, a leading environmentalist and creator of a leading environmental news website told IRIN.
Perhutani (Indonesian state forestry company) exploits 2,4 million hectares of forests in Java – 7 percent of the island area – with earnings of around 400 million US dollar in 2011.
Although Perhutani agreed in 2011 to the voluntary process that promotes eco-friendly management in order to obtain certification, it controls a huge area of forest once used by indigenous communities, many of whom still depend on the forests for their livelihoods.
The company needs FSC certification to access high-value wood markets in the US and Europe, said Muhammad Firman, director of the Forest Utilization Department under Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry.
SFM balances the present use of forests with their preservation for future generations.
Certification started in the 1980s and is granted to forest companies by around 60 independent organizations under two main umbrella groups:
1) Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), the world’s largest forest certification system, and
2) the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – with 20 to 30 percent of North American and European forests having certification, and Asia lagging far behind with only 2 to 4 percent.
However, many activists believe SFM certification is geared less towards local communities than towards the environment and facilitating trade between forest companies and Western wood buyers
“When indigenous people have been denied the right to use forests in the traditional way, no ‘inclusion’ programme can fully match their loss. It is not a question of ‘exclusion’ or ‘inclusion’,” said Deddy Raith, from the Jakarta-based NGO, WALHI-Friends of the Earth Indonesia.
“Today, Perhutani still has full responsibility over the forests,” said Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto, president of the local NGO, Telapak.
“What we want is to mainstream community logging as the new trees-management regime in Indonesia”, added he.
Martua Sirait, a policy analyst in Aceh Province for the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre, maintains that the management of forests has ignored the customary land rights (fællesjord) of some 40 to 60 million people since the 1960s.
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95443/INDONESIA-Forests-remain-a-source-of-conflict
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