Commodifying Legality? Who and What Counts as Legal in the Indonesian Wood Trade

ABSTRACT

This article examines how legality verification in Indonesia, as developed under the European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), shapes who and what count as legal. A review of Indonesia’s evolving legality verification system and in-depth stakeholder interviews reveal a process of commodification driven by international demand for an interchangeable label of “legality.” This interchangeability is produced through a reduction of forest governance to a narrow set of legal standards and third-party, private auditing, which risks obscuring key governance challenges such as corruption and unclear tenure, and excluding most domestic and small-scale operators from economic and legal recognition. Given the market logic of legality licensing, it is more likely to “ratchet down” than “ratchet up” local access to, and benefit from, wood production, unless there is greater support and investment in legal and tenure reforms and improved local benefit capture.

KEYWORDS:

• Certification
• FLEGT VPA
• forest
• illegal logging
• Indonesia
• legal analysis
• legality verification
• smallholders

Acknowledgments

We thank all study participants for sharing their time and insights.

Notes

(MoF) Decree 38/2009. It has been revised several times to date.

Interview 3, NGO, April 8, 2015.

Interview with key informant 8, logging industry, April 13, 2015.

Government Regulation (Perdirjen BUK 14/2014) Annex 3.1, 3c for PHPL Annex 3.2.2.

Interview with key informant 1, NGO, April 2, 2015.

Interview with key informant 3, NGO, April 8, 2015, and key informant 10, NGO, April 14, 2015.

Interview with key informant 10, NGO, April 14, 2015.

MoF Decree 14/VI-BPHHH/2014 on Standard, Criteria, Indicators and Guideline to implement SVLK and PHPL.

Interview with key informant 2, NGO/donor agency, April 16, 2015, and key informant 16, certifier, May 8, 2015.

Interview with key informant 21, NGO, April 1, 2015.

See Supplementary Online Material for a summary of these changes.

Interview with key informant 22, European Commission, September 7, 2015.

Interview with key informant 2, donor agency, April 16, 2015.

Interview with key informant 6, NGO, April 10, 2015.

Interview with key informant 18, smallholder, June 22, 2015.

Interview with key informant 7, smallholder, April 10, 2015.