Indonesian President Joko Widodo – who is currently on a five-day trip to Europe – visited the European Union (EU) institutions in Brussels yesterday (21/4).
President Jokowi met the three EU Presidents: the European Parliament President Martin Schulz, the European Council President Donald Tusk and the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The head of states have agreed to move towards reducing illegal logging and promoting trade in legally produced timber between the EU and Indonesia through the start of the first-ever Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licensing scheme.
The announcement is based on the joint assessment that Indonesia is fully ready to implement the Indonesia-EU Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), based on the inclusion of all relevant product groups in the scope of the Agreement. With this breakthrough the two Parties are now in a position to move swiftly towards a fully operational licencing system making Indonesia the first country to pass this final hurdle.
Benefiting from significant support from the European Commission and EU Member States, particularly the UK, the FLEGT VPA has strengthened forest governance by increasing transparency, accountability and stakeholder participation in decisions about forests. It has boosted legal trade, modernized and formalized Indonesia’s forest sector, and improved business practices, enabling many thousands of businesses to meet market demand for legal timber.
In 2002, just 20% of Indonesia’s timber was legal. Today, over 90% of Indonesia’s timber exports are from independently audited factories and forests. These audits cover more than 20 million hectares of forests and more than 1700 forest industries, an unprecedented level of scrutiny.
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