The National Accreditation Committee (KAN), an International Accreditation Forum (IAF) member accreditation body based in Indonesia, has officially operated the Indonesian Forestry Certification Cooperation (IFCC) accreditation as a voluntary forestry certification scheme. According to IFCC, this is the first voluntary forestry certification scheme in Indonesia operated by KAN.
Donny Purnomo, secretary general of KAN, stated that this certification is needed for domestic industries in order to ensure the implementation of sustainable forest management. Later, he elaborated that the IFCC certification is required to enter the market countries. For example, the Timber Legality Verification (VLK) and the Sustainable Production Forest Management (PHPL) have been accepted in Europe, however, other countries call for IFCC.
“As agreed with the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry, starting last month, KAN operates IFCC for sustainable forest management. In relation to synergy, one of them is the agreement with the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry to operate IFCC private scheme in order to facilitate the exports,” said Purnomo.
“This kind of synergy will be implemented continuously to oversee the need of the ministry in facilitating the export development and will be expanded to the direct industrial needs.”
Moreover, KAN mentioned that as a manifestation of good forest governance towards sustainable forest management that has been built through the mandatory scheme of the Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK), the operation of IFCC as a voluntary forestry accreditation scheme can encourage and improve the sustainable forest management in Indonesia, and strengthen and fill the role of SVLK in encouraging global market demand for forest products and their derivatives.
Nurcahyo Adi, head of Certification, Accreditation & Training Division – IFCC Board of Directors, revealed that the IFCC accreditation requirements for the certification bodies that will carry out IFCC certification are that they must be IFCC accredited by an accreditation body that is a member of the IAF.
Since KAN is a member of the IAF, therefore, with the acceptance of IFCC as a voluntary forestry certification scheme that can be accredited by KAN, it will create wider access of business opportunities for domestic certification bodies in Indonesia through the submission of accreditation for the IFCC or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certification scheme to KAN.
Adi expressed that the process towards the acceptance of IFCC as a voluntary forestry certification scheme that can be accredited by KAN had started in 2012, then was stopped and resumed in 2018. Now the certification bodies in Indonesia can immediately apply for IFCC/PEFC accreditation, both sustainable forest management (SFM) and chain-of-certification (CoC) to KAN.
Thus, this will increase the opportunities for small and medium industries to participate in accessing the global market through IFCC/PEFC certification.
