Perajin mebel skala kecil masih sulit memperoleh sertifikasi ekolabel karena biayanya mahal. Padahal sertifikasi semakin dibutuhkan seiring permintaan pasar akan produk mebel yang ramah lingkungan dan melalui proses yang benar. Pemimpin proyek dari CIFOR Herry Purnomo juga mengakui perajin kecil sulit menyertifikasi produknya. Adanya Asosiasi Perajin Kecil Jepara diharapkan para perajin kecil dapat berkumpul dalam satu wadah. Dengan demikian, sertifikasi dapat dilakukan secara berkelompok.

The study, jointly conducted by researchers at IIED, Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the World Resource Institute (WRI), took place in forest nations including Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil and Mexico. Funded by the Norwegian government, the study was published as delegates from about 190 countries meet in Bonn for an international conference that will last until June 12, 2009, to hammer out a new regime of emission reduction to address the climate change.

With much-awaited talks on emissions cuts underway, Indonesia has insisted any binding targets for reductions should be imposed only on developed countries, saying they are to blame for the adverse fallout from man-made climate change. The seminar was jointly organized by the French Embassy in Indonesia and, among others, WWF Indonesia, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Danone Aqua.

Investing in the conservation of tropical forests in order to gain billions from carbon credits could also protect orangutans, pygmy elephants and other wildlife at risk of extinction, a report says. The study, jointly conducted by researchers from the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the University of Queensland, The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Conservation Letters.

At the 8th Meeting of the Asia Forest Partnership in Bali on May 28 and 29, Puspa said that in more than 50 percent of illegal logging cases, or 326 cases, filed from 2005 to 2008, courts only handed out prison sentences of 1 to 12 months to guilty parties. Only two cases saw jail sentences of three to four years. “We still have insufficient exchange of information, facilities and technologies to combat illegal logging. So far, law enforcers have only successfully apprehended those working at the lowest level,” she said.

CIFOR Director General Frances Seymour said REDD offered important win-win opportunities for climate and biodiversity protection. ‘Ultimately, our goal is to help fashion an agreement in Copenhagen that will allow tropical forests to become a part of a more comprehensive climate agreement – one that will reduce emissions as well as produce co-benefits,’ M[s] Seymour said. ‘There is already a good case to be made for ending the exclusion of existing forests in the next climate pact. This new evidence shows just one of the many benefits that a REDD accord could have.’

Still, Frances Seymour, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia which also took part in the study, said the new data should help make the case that forest have to be part of the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”Ultimately, our goal is to help fashion an agreement that will allow tropical forests to become a part of a more comprehensive climate agreement — one that will reduce emissions, as well as produce co-benefits,” she said in a statement.

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However, dire predictions of systemic failure are “extremely pessimistic,” said Markku Kanninen, an expert from the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) who was a member of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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