From voluntary private to mandatory state governance in Indonesian forest certification: Reclaiming authority by bureaucracies

Abstract

Forest certification has been introduced by non-state actors as a voluntary and market-based instrument addressing forest problems, which state policies failed to resolve. Lately, however, state-driven forest-related certification schemes can be observed, e.g. in Indonesia, through the EU FLEGT-VPA negotiation process. It is argued, specific state agencies in a struggle for power and authority develop mandatory certification schemes which are directly competing with private ones. Before this background, the aims of this study are: (i) describing the current trend from voluntary private to mandatory state certification schemes in Indonesia, (ii) mapping the main actors involved in certification politics, and (iii) explaining this trend with the interests of the main actors. The results confirm a trend from voluntary private to mandatory state-driven certification of forest management. The Ministry of Forestry, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Industry, wood producer and processing associations, European Union, local funding organizations, environmental organizations, certification bodies and international buyers are detected as the main coalitions and actors in the certification politics. The stronger coalition develops a mandatorily-timber legality verification system as strategies to counter their voluntary private competitor schemes.

Diplomasi Indonesia Dalam Perdagangan Kayu Ke Uni Eropa : Studi Kasus Penundaan Implementasi Lisensi FLEGT

“…Namun demikian, perlu dicatat bahwa secara de facto Indonesia Kajian pustaka yang mendiskusikan fenomena FLEGT sejauh ini sudah cukup banyak. Secara garis besar kajian pustaka ini dapat dikategorikan ke dalam tiga kelompok besar, yaitu pertama, kajian yang mengaitkan FLEGT dengan rezim politik kehutanan internasional (Dlamini & Montouroy, 2017;Overdevest & Zeitlin, 2014a, 2014b; kedua, kajian yang mendiskusikan isu FLEGT dalam konteks kebijakan nasional negara mitra yang menggambarkan adanya dinamika politik domestik dalam penerapan rezim FLEGT (Maryudi, 2016a;McDermott et al, 2020;Setyowati & McDermott, 2017; van Heeswijk & Turnhout, 2013Schmitz, 2016Wibowo & Giessen, 2018); dan ketiga adalah kajian yang membahas FLEGT dalam kajian diplomasi ekonomi yang menggambarkan keterlibatan aktor non-negara pada perundingan VPA (Indrawati, 2016).…”

Balancing the Principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources and Sustainable Forest Management: Indonesian Experiences

“…Two of them are voluntarily, namely the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute or Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia (LEI) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), while the mandatory scheme is the Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) or Sistem Verivikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK). 124 In June 2009, the Indonesian government set up the TLAS (or SVLK), as a mandatory certification to guarantee the legality of Indonesian timbers and reduce illegal logging. 125 The TLAS was based on the Ministry of Forestry Regulation Number P.38/Menhut-II/2009 on the Standard for Evaluating Performance of Implementation of Sustainable Production Forest Management and Verification of Legality of Logs.…”

Voluntary Sustainability Certification and State Regulations: Paths to Promote the Conservation of Ecosystem Services? Experiences in Indonesia

“…Antagonism between state regulations and FSC ES certification occurs mainly due to unclear land and resource tenure norms which undermines efforts to develop stronger regulations and make compliance with FSC ES certification challenging. Such antagonism between state and private schemes also occurred in the sphere of timber legality certification in Indonesia, where proponents of the four main schemes (FSC, PEFC, LEI, and SVLK) delegitimized each other's schemes, suggesting that legitimacy is a tool in market competition to win market acceptance and share [51]. Although the FSC scheme was considered the best scheme according to the Forest Certification Assessment Guide (FCAG), small-scale forest holders prefer the SVLK scheme, which had the lowest FCAG score, because of its mandatory nature and available subsidies.…”