The global Covid-19 pandemic caused movement restrictions including the world of conservation, but it did not keep the related parties to just wait until it’s over. BirdLife International organized an online meeting to update the latest news on the forestry governance strengthening program supported by the European Union (EU). This program itself involves several BirdLife partners namely Malaysia Nature Society (Malaysia), Haribon Foundation (Philippines), Burung Indonesia (Indonesia), Tenkile Conservation Alliance and the University of Papua New Guinea (Papua New Guinea), and the Center of International Development and Training (CIDT) University of Wolverhampton (English).
Burung Indonesia described the establishing of a network related to Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Volunteer Partnership (VPA). FLEGT aims to improve forest sector governance while ensuring that timber products imported into EU member countries have complied with production processes that are in accordance with regulations and are sustainable.
The program which started in 2017 is intended to strengthen the participation of non-government parties in forestry governance in Indonesia. Over the past four years, Burung Indonesia has continued to cooperate with policy makers at the national level to inform and strengthen policies based on experiences at the site level.
The partners described the situation in each country in dealing with the pandemic Covid-19 and exchanged information related to the progress of project achievements throughout 2019. The good news was all partners were still on the same track toward project’s goals. One of the aims is to increase the involvement of local communities in forest management and monitoring. All partners including Burung Indonesia have facilitated a number of training and workshops and implemented various other initiatives.
There are many opportunities for partners to collaborate in order to exchange knowledge and experiences. In addition, there are considerable challenges to ensure that the forest governance efforts that have been developed can continue to develop in the future considering that this five-year project is entering its final years.
The partners continue to ensure that the positive impact of this initiative can be continued, both in forest monitoring and matters related to the forest governance network that has been established, as well as ensuring that non-governmental parties have access to increase their capacity and knowledge. (ARI)