Gorontalo plantation licenses the first to achieve FSC certification in Indonesia

On July 13, 2017, PT. Forestry Ganda Utama was awarded FSC® certification for its management of PT. Gema Nusantara Jaya and PT. Gorontalo Citra Lestari, two forest plantation concessions in Gorontalo Province, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Certification of these two adjacent license areas covering 74,155 ha of degraded forest landscape under the FSC scheme are a milestone achievement for Indonesia’s forest sector since the FSC conversion cut-of date of 1994 has till now, been a major barrier to certification for plantation companies in Indonesia.

To achieve FSC certification, the two companies had to commit to no conversion and developed silvicultural modules of plantation establishment on deforested lands and intensive enrichment planting in areas with partial forest cover. In addition, residual areas of relatively intact forest were maintained as biodiversity conservation areas guided by a HCVF assessment. Enrichment planting was done using fast growing local species.

PT. Gema Nusantara Jaya and PT. Gorontalo Citra Lestari received financial support from The Borneo Initiative, while coaching and technical support were provided by the Tropical Forest Foundation (TFF).

The Borneo Initiative is a non-governmental program that aims to counter forest degradation and forest loss in Indonesia via the promotion of responsible forest management, following the standard set by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). With this certification of PT. Forestry Ganda Utama, the 22nd and 23rd forest concession have achieved FSC certification with facilitation from The Borneo Initiative, bringing the total certified forest area supported by The Borneo Initiative to 2,160,255 ha. When including five Controlled Wood certificates (333,265 ha), then The Borneo Initiative has facilitated the certification of a total forest area of 2,483,420 ha.

As a country, Indonesia now has 37 FSC certificates with 2,717,051 ha certified forests, and 7 controlled wood certificates with 2,826,948 ha.

For direct information on this achievement, contact Mr. Amin Suar (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) +62213854080.