Telapak and Forest Watch Indonesia say that the Indonesian government is complicit in the scheme, issuing licenses for new plantations on land which was formerly natural forest.
‘LEI’s certification only looks at how the timber estates are managed once operational, without considering the significant ecological impacts of forest conversion, especially in peat ecosystems,’ said Wirendro Sumargo, executive director of Forest Watch Indonesia. ‘These industrial timber estates are built by converting natural forests into monocultured plantations, which is clearly against the principles of sustainable forest management.’
This article first appeared in the Ecologist April 2009
