FSC-accreditied certifier SmartWood, set up by the Rainforest Alliance to promote eco-friendly forest management, has said that these concessionaires, who number six out of 60 operating in the country, account for just 847,000 ha of the 600 million ha harvested in Indonesia.
This has led Aisyah Erawati Sileuw, SmartWood’s co-ordinator in the Asia Pacific region, to claim that it is up to the timber-buying public to place a greater onus on forest companies to produce goods using “environmentally sustainable practices”.
The Indonesian provinces of Aceh, Papua and West Papua recently pledged to help protect the country’s rainforests by eliminating illegal logging.
