Timber for Aceh Initiative
As an extension of WWF’s Green Reconstruction Policy Guidelines, WWF has called for those involved in reconstruction to use timber from well-managed forests and plantations under the Timber for Aceh initiative. This initiative is supported financially by USAID.
The problem
The solution
The problem
- Environmentally sustainable yield in Indonesia (ie, the volume of timber that can be taken from Indonesia’s forests on an on-going basis if forestry is well managed) = 14 million m3 pa whereas actual volume taken from Indonesian forests = 55 million m3 pa
- Indonesian forests are over-logged by a factor of 3
- Massive illegal logging problem
- Timber required for rebuilding Aceh’s housing sector alone = 1.8 million m3 of round logs = 860,000 m3 of sawn timber
- Using timber from unsustainable sources (even if legal) is a simplistic approach that ignores the true costs and shifts the problem from one place to another, and from now to some point in the future
The solution
- Use imported timber from well-managed forests (eg, forests in Australia, New Zealand, USA, and Canada)
- Australia harvests approximately 2 million cubic metres of logs annually for sawn timber production. This would produce approximately 1 million cubic metres of sawn timber. (Source: Australia’s State of the Forests Report 2003, p122 )
Timber for Aceh success stories
- British Red Cross, Oxfam, and Premiere Urgence are importing sustainably-logged timber from Australia and NZ (Oxfam: 640 m3 in an initial trial for Aceh and 8,500 m3 for Sri Lanka – the largest shipment of Australian timber to a single destination ever; Premiere Urgence: 1,100 m3 for Aceh). The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has tendered for the supply of 16,000 m3 of sustainably-logged timber.
- World Vision is trialling the use of alternative building materials including timber from Indonesian plantation-grown acacia and rubber trees.
- The Australian government has stipulated the use of timber from well-managed sources in all its post-tsunami projects.
- Timber donated by US timber companies has begun arriving in Indonesia.
