The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) together with the Indonesian Forest Entrepreneurs Association (APHI) held a Forestry Forum to continue to encourage the implementation of Multi Forestry Businesses in areas managed by Forest Utilisation Business Licenses (PBPH).

"The implementation of MUK will provide optimal benefit value, both from technical, production, social and economic aspects," said Acting Director General of Sustainable Forest Management of KLHK Agus Justianto at the opening of the Forestry Forum in Jakarta, Tuesday (30/1/2024).

Agus explained that Indonesia has a forest area of around 120.35 million hectares or 68% of Indonesia's land area. This wealth of forest resources must be managed sustainably to support community welfare and environmental sustainability.

Agus stated that there are five pillars of sustainable forest management. The five are Area Certainty, Business Security, Productivity, Product Diversification, and Competitiveness.

Agus further explained that multi-forestry business is an innovation in the paradigm of forest management from timber-oriented management to forest landscape management.

"PBPH areas in production forests can be integrated with processing of timber forest products and processing of non-timber forest products," Agus said.

The implementation of multi-enterprise forestry is also believed to be a solution to the challenges faced such as food security, energy and medicine. Agus also said that multiple forestry businesses support the achievement of the 2030 FOLU Net Sink target.

To encourage the implementation of multiple forestry businesses, Kadin Indonesia and APHI collaborated to present the Kadin Regenerative Forestry Business Hub (RFBH) to overcome the challenges faced by forestry entrepreneurs as the goal of the Omnibus Law and the new Multipurpose Forestry Regulation.

Vice Chairman of Kadin Indonesia for Environment and Forestry Silverius Oscar Unggul said that through RFBH, businesses are expected to gain in-depth understanding and learn about additional incentives for regenerative forestry practices.

"Kadin RFBH is an inclusive communication platform that involves various stakeholders and presents a learning model to build a sustainable regenerative forest business," he explained.

"The government, concession owners, downstream industries/offtakers, investors, and even research institutions can find out about regenerative forestry practices and incentives in their implementation," added Silverius Oscar.

Similarly, APHI Vice Chairman Dr Soewarso explained that through this facilitation, business actors can share lessons learned from the development of multiple forestry businesses, dialogue, and support their implementation.

"Together with pioneer companies, initiate the implementation of multi forestry businesses based on an upstream-downstream cooperation system involving stakeholders," he said.

Soewarso said there are three main issues that need to be resolved to encourage the implementation of multiple forestry businesses, namely regulatory support, human resources, and access to financing and markets.