Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, together with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and European Council President Donald Tusk agreed on the 21st of April 2016 to start reducing illegal logging and promoting trade in legally produced timber between the EU and Indonesia through the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licensing scheme, according to Tempo.Co.
Indonesia is now ready to implement the Indonesia-EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), as agreed on a joint assessment. Considering this step forward, Indonesia is the first country to pass this final obstacle.
"Today's announcement is a signal to markets that it is possible to promote sustainable forest management by buying verified legally produced timber," said Karmenu Vella European commissioner for environment, maritime affairs and fisheries.
He added that both Indonesia and its EU partners could offer stimulus for ending the illegal logging issues. The FLEGT VPA has helped the legal trade, with a lot of assistance from the European Commission and EU Member States. It also modernized and formalized Indonesia's forest sector, and improved business practices, enabling many thousands of businesses to meet market demand for legal timber, as Tempo.Co reported.
It all started in 2002, when only 20% of the timber in Indonesia was legal. At the moment, 90% of the timber exports in Indonesia come from independently audited factories and forests. This percent covers more than 20 million hectares of forests and more than 1,700 forest industries.
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