Indonesia Independent Forestry Monitoring Network (Jaringan Pemantau Independen Kehutanan – JPIK)
on Indonesia – EU FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement

The Timber Legality Verification System (in Indonesian Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu – SVLK) is the important initiative to address illegal logging and promoting legal timber. This initiative has been developed since 2003 through a multi-stakeholders process. The SVLK aims to ensure that Indonesia timber and wood product are produced from verified legal sources. It applies to all timber and wood products from natural forest, plantation forest, and communityforest. The SVLK becomes central in the partnership agreement between Indonesian and the EU, as it is used as Indonesian Timber Legality Assurance System (Indonesia TLAS). Under the system, all product covered by the agreement will have a legality license to enter the EU market. The Indonesian government adopted the SVLK in 2009 and started implementation in September 2010. The regulation has undergone revision in December 2011, December 2012 and August 2013 to strengthen its system and implementation.

Independent Monitoring is an integral part of the SVLK and lends credibility to the SVLK. SVLK gives mandate to civil society and formally recognizes their role as independent monitor of the system. Indonesian civil society has been playing a vital role in driving the process, developing the standards and implementing guidelines of the SVLK in Indonesia. Representative of civil society groups have also been participating in FEGT-VPA negotiation with the EU.

On 30 September 2013, after 6 years of negotiation, Indonesia and EU signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) of forest law enforcement, governance, and trade in timber product to the EU, confirming their mutual commitments to ensure that timber entering the EU is produced, harvested and shipped legally.

In this regard, we, the undersigned organizations and individuals representing 382 members of JPIK:

1. Welcome the signing of the FLEGT-VPA between Indonesia and the EU in September 2013 as an important stepping stone towards improved forest governance in Indonesia;

2. Encourage both the Indonesian Government and EU to expedite the ratification processes so that subsequent processes leading to implementation can be conducted immediately;

3. Reiterate our support and commitment to make positive contribution to the implementation of SVLK and VPA through our role as independent monitor;

4. Realize that the SVLK at its current state still needs improvement in many aspects, including : lack of access to public information needed by the monitor; unsatisfactory complaint handling by relevant authorities; gazettement issues due to tenurial conflict; unverified timber entering the supply chain

5. Appreciate that many of the issues above have been included in the Joint Action Plan following the recommendation of Joint Evaluation of SVLK and call the Government of Indonesia to address these issues in participatory and consultative manner to ensure credibility of SVLK before the full implementation of VPA;

6. Call the Indonesian Government to address corruption and money laundering in forest/timber sector as they have been the stumbling block toward better forest governance in Indonesia. SVLK-certified companies proven to be involved in corruption and money laundering must be investigated and prosecuted and the certification must be revoked;

7. Call both the Indonesian Government and the EU to support civil society monitor of SVLK both in resource and protection from threats and violence;

8. Call the EU to tighten the implementation of EU Timber Regulation as a complementary measure to VPA so that illegally sourced timber cannot enter EU market.

kertas posisi JPIK_Edit


Those signatories are representatives of 382 JPIK members (318 individual and 64 institutions) with distributes from Aceh, North Sumatera, Riau, West Sumatera, Jambi, South Sumatera, Bengkulu, Lampung, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Banten, West Java, Jakarta, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, Gorontalo, North Maluku, Maluku, West Papua and Papua.

Keterangan : 1) In September 2010, 29 CSOs from 21 provinces in 5 big islands in Indonesia including Sumatera (Aceh, North Sumatera, West Sumatera, Riau, Jambi, Bengkulu, South Sumatera and Lampung), Java (Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java), Kalimantan (West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan), Sulawesi (South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi), Papua (West Papua and Papua) agreed to set up Indonesia Independent Forestry Monitoring Network (JPIK – Jaringan Pemantau Independen Kehutanan) to monitor the implementation of SVLK. Currently JPIK have 382 members that includes 318 individuals and 64 organisations which spreads out in 27 provinces in 6 big islands in Indonesia: Sumatera (Aceh, North Sumatera, West Sumatera, Riau, Jambi, Bengkulu, South Sumatera and Lampung), Java (Jakarta, Banten, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java), Kalimantan (West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan), Sulawesi (South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, and Gorontalo), Maluku, North Maluku, Papua (West Papua and Papua).