Independent monitoring is an integral part of SVLK, the Indonesia’s timber legality assurance system. This entity consists of NGOs with legal status and communities living in proximity of the forests that aims to monitor operators’ compliance on the requirements of legality definition. This includes conformity of the accreditation, verification, periodic evaluation, and licensing processes. The role of independent monitoring for SVLK implementation is recognized in the Ministry of Environmental and Forestry (MoEF) Regulation No.30/2016, where it acknowledges the rights of Independent Forest Monitors (IFM) to access information and locations relevant to monitoring; to guarantee the protection of IFM against threat prior, during, and after monitoring; and to be eligible sustainable funding from public and private sources.
Due to limited funds, independent monitors face significant challenge to sustain their work. Each monitoring organisation run their owns fund raising activities which hinder their actual monitoring work. In this regard, an Independent Forest Monitoring (IFM) Fund is created to initiate an effective, focused, and sustainable fund-raising efforts for independent forest monitoring. To make this operational, Yayasan Pemantau Independen Kehutanan Indonesia (Y-PIKI), or Independent Forest Monitoring (IFM) Fund has been established in 2017 – with initial support from the UK government via the Multi-stakeholder Forestry Programme Phase 3 – to operation of the trust fund institution that serves as a backer of SVLK monitoring and governance improvement by independent forest monitors.
The early of September 2018, the FAO-EU FLEGT Programme have agreed to support IFM Fund continuing its function. The project’s title is “Strengthening forest governance through independent forest monitoring (IFM) towards the effective implementation of SLVK and FLEGT initiative in Indonesia (PO 330760)”. The objective of project is fully in line with the mandate of IFM Fund to provide financial support for its constituents (independent forest monitors and networks), to strengthen and facilitate capacity building, fund raising and disbursement mechanism, and information sharing in support of independent forest monitoring in Indonesia.
• Outcome 1: Civil society is fully engaged in and has the capacity to carry out independent forest monitoring within the SVLK and FLEGT implementation. This outcome is directly contribute to the mandate of IFM Fund to strengthen and facilitate independent forest monitoring in Indonesia.
• Outcome 2: IFM Fund’s small grant mechanism is established and tested. With this project, IFM Fund will launch, measure performance, evaluate, and improve its small grant’s mechanism.
• Outcome 3: IFM Fund’s institutional structures, roles, and resources is strengthened. The main objective of this outcome is to strengthen the institutional structure and operational capacity of IFM Fund as a viable trust fund with the ability to support forest monitoring and governance in Indonesia.
To give an overall picture of the project, the IFM Fund intends to conduct a meeting to launch this project to stakeholder. This activity will invite parties related to the project, from the government, donors, international organization, civil society organizations and indigenous people institutions.