BAB 2-SVLK

CHAPTER II SVLK

Long ago, illegal logging occurred in many tropical forest countries, included Indonesia. Illegal logging in Indonesia causes forest destruction and various environment problems included losses in the field of ecology, socio-economics, and even politics. It is marked with forest damage reaches more than 2 million ha per year with the values of loss in socio-economic and ecology in the form of climate change, landslide, flood, the damage of forest habitat/nature in the amount of IDR 530 trillion. In Indonesia, illegal logging becomes the Government concern, especially since 1990’s. beside because the timber scale which is illegally logged is far beyond the sustainable timber supply. Illegal logging is also associated with other issues, such as the loss of biodiversity and corruptive forest management practices.

The rampant of illegal logging and illegal timber trade which cause a massive forest destruction gives impact to the decrease of the competitiveness of Indonesian forestry timber products in the eyes of consumers and also gives bad impact to forestry governance in Indonesia. One of the reasons why those happen because the weakness of law enforcement in forestry sector. Moreover, there is a doubt from the consumers on the ambiguity of assurance and product legality so that create bad image for Indonesia.

To fight against illegal logging which is never ending and to break the forestry criminals network that is untouchable, so it needs special concern by realizing the improvement of a better forestry

governance and the trade. Another thing is the need for information openness, stakeholder participation, and improve law enforcement. So, in 2001 was held the First Regional Ministerial Conference Concerning Law Enforcement and Forest Law Enforcement Governance (FLEG) for East Asia and Pacific region in Bali. Then, in 2002 signed MoU or bilateral agreement between Indonesia and the UK to improve forest management and law enforcement to fight against illegal logging and illegal timber products in international trade.

After the agreement and initiative from multistakeholder through participation process of multistakeholder, since 2003 European Union adopted the agreement and added one aspect concerning trade became an action plan or European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade action plan (EU FLEGT action plan). Since then, appeared initiatives to overcome illegal logging and promote legal timber through Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK). Various discussions were held to assure that timber and timber products come from legal sources and it is expected to an effort to encourage all timber products in Indonesia to be produced from sustainable forest management.

Series by series of discussions related to the process to the finalization of SVLK keep going, followed with the negotiation of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade - Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT-VPA). In 2008, multi-stakeholder group under the auspices of National Forestry Council proposed timber legality standard to the Government in order to be adopted as mandatory rules. In 2009, the Indonesian government enforced SVLK by issuing Permenhut 38/2009 concerning performance assessment of Sustainable Production Forest Management and Timber Legality Verification for permit holders and community forest. Then, the regulation started to be implemented in 2010. The regulations of SVLK implementation are kept updated, such the issuance of Permen LHK 21/2020 concerning Performance Assessment of Sustainable Production Forest Management and Timber Legality Verification to the license holder, management rights, private forest or legality holder of the utilization of Timber Forest Products.