JAKARTA – To accelerate the process of certifiying palm oil under the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) has proposed to the government to establish a Committee of ISPO, which will function as the daily executor of ISPO certification.
GAPKI’s Plantation Division Head R. Azis Hidayat said the existence of the committee will improve and accelerate the technical and administrative process of ISPO certification, which is still slow and not yet at the expected maximum level.
“Since the absence of steering committee in the new structure of ISPO management board, the technical implementation on the ground has been weakening. It needs a daily executor to accelerate the certification process,” he said recently in Jakarta.
Azis said that considering that the ISPO certification is very slow, especially in the sector of smallholders’ plantations, the role of such a daily executor is badly needed to push up the certification process.
“Of the total 7.0 million hectares of smallholders’ plantations, only around 100 thousand hectares had been certified under ISPO,” he said.
According to him, the main problem facing the certification is the legality of land areas, which include documents of ownership rights (SHM) and cultivation registration letters (STDB).
“Around 6.0 million hectares of smallholders’ plantations have not yet had strong legal basis to join the certification process,” said Azis.
He also stated that actually the problem of legality is not only attached to the smallholders, as many big companies have yet to finalize their land use rights (HGU) for their plantations.
But despite the fact, GAPKI asserted its strong commitment to push all of its member companies to comply with the regulation that obliges them to have ISPO certificates.
Currently, of the total 1,177 member companies of GAPKI, around 58 percent have secured their ISPO certificates for 3.6 million hectares of plantation areas.
“Certainly, our target is 100 percent of GAPKI members should have the ISPO certificates,” he said, adding that for the purpose GAPKI has set up a special division, which is assigned to handle the ISPO certification and plantation partnerships. (*)
