A 10-point action plan to promote the sourcing of legal and sustainable timber from Indonesia has been published by the Timber Trade Federation (TTF).
It follows a landmark meeting in June which brought together for the first time a range of stakeholders including business, NGOs and government.
Only 4% of Indonesian plywood export is imported to the UK compared to 75% exported to Japan and China – but the TTF is determined to help secure Indonesia’s most important natural resource.
The preferred approach is to purchase from mills that can effectively separate streams of known, legal timber from unknown and potentially illegal timber, through certified chain of custody systems, and to work closely with those mills to eventually eliminate all timber of unknown or dubious origin.
The action plan consists of: drawing up a shortlist of mills supplying the UK; extending membership of the Indonesia Buyers Group to cover all UK TTF traders with Indonesia; writing to all major mills supplying the UK describing the evolving UK market and the TTF’s approach to tackling illegal logging; writing to the Indonesian Plywood Industry Association (APKINDO) and the Indonesian Forestry Ministry to obtain more information regarding BRIK – the joint industry/government initiative and targets; setting up a scoping study to develop a set of options and explore the feasibility of third party auditing for Indonesia Buyers Group; working with Tropical Forest Trust on finalising a buyer power study to explore leverage of the UK and other markets on Indonesia; holding another meeting of the Indonesia Buyers Group (7 July);
TTF delegation to visit Indonesia by the end of the year; promoting a common procurement approach to other European markets; and keeping informed on developments in In-donesia.
