Forestfund, March 08, 2021. The never-ending story of deforestation in Indonesia requires multistakeholder participation in safeguarding the country’s forests. For this reason, monitoring activities should be going on. This is where independent monitors play their role in maintaining Indonesia’s forest sustainability.
According to Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), one of the most severe forest destructions is found in Sumatera, which is second after that in Kalimantan during the 2013-2017 period.
According to Genesis, Bengkulu, one of the provinces in Sumatera, has 924 thousand forest area (46% of its total administrative territory). However, the forest area has seen a decrease from year to year due to exploitation in the name of Forest Concession (HPH), plantation to mining.
Efforts have been made by environmentalist and activists to suppress the increasing forest destruction in the province. This includes awareness raising for community, campaign and communication with relevant stakeholders, and community engagement for maintaining local forests.
To some extent, limitations faced by environmental activists and forest-surrounding communities often become one of the problems in forest monitoring process. As a matter of fact, this independent monitor’s role is vital to forest process sustainability and governance.
That being said, such limitations should be viewed as a challenge to independent monitors in discovering effective ways or methods, including identifying and using the facilities available to them.
Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) is an instrument that can be used in forest monitoring process, through which distribution of illegal timber can be controlled, hence suppressed rate of deforestation.
For this reason, independent monitors should appropriately understand matters concerning TLAS, including its relevant laws and regulations and technicalities.
One of the efforts to deal with this issue is offered by Genesis, an organisation established in 2004 and concerned about environmental destruction in Bengkulu. It organises a training for independent monitors, which also engages communities, particularly those who live around concessions.
In addition to building independent monitors’ capacity regarding timber legality, this training also aims at gauging the participants’ understanding on TLAS, data verification and other technicalities.
Supported by Independent Forest Monitoring Fund, this event was held in two days, from 7 to 8 January 2021 and attended by 23 participants, 6 out of which are women, from various environmental organisations such as Walhi Bengkulu, Kanopi, Kelopak, and Mukomuko community from North Bengkulu.