KUCHING: Fifty industry players are taking part in a two-day workshop to acquire updates on global trends on forest legality requirements and forest certification.
Titled ‘Market Requirements for Timber and Timber Product Legality Affecting Sarawak: Forging the Path Forward’, the workshop is jointly organised by the state Forest Department, Nature, Ecology and People Consult (NEPCon) Malaysia and World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia).
The workshop will allow the participants to have an understanding on the market requirements and timber legality and also be informed of what a company needs to do in order to obtain forest management certification.
Speakers and facilitators at the workshop are NEPCon executive director Peter Feilberg, NEPCon (Southeast Asia) regional manager and NEPCon Malaysia director Christian Schriver and NEPCon legality experts Oliver Cupit and Alexandra Banks. NEPCon is a non-profit organisation that builds commitment and capacity for mainstreaming sustainability.
Forest Department director Sapuan Ahmad said the two-day event would provide an invaluable opportunity for key players in the forestry sector to find out more about legality and certification of timber and timber products as well as market trend and value.
He was glad that key players of the timber industry from Peninsular Malaysia and throughout the state had sent their top management representatives to the workshop.
“This shows how serious they are about this, taking the right decisions in response to our on-going efforts to improve the timber legality system in Sarawak.”
Sapuan said the first similar seminar took place last August which was opened by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem, who agreed that most of permanent forest areas must be certified.