Indonesia’s first shipment of “EUDR ready” coffee—coffee beans backed by fully traceable blockchain technology—has been shipped to Dubai in the UAE. Yesterday, Raja Juli Antoni, Indonesia’s Forestry Minister, hailed the delivery of eight tonnes of beans as a milestone for local communities looking to better manage state-owned forests using agroforestry.
“I thank all parties involved in social forestry because this is the manifestation of President Prabowo Subianto’s vision. We can now export coffee to Dubai, and with traceability technology, we can track the origin of the coffee and price.”
Raja Juli Antoni, Indonesia’s Forestry Minister with the West Sumatra Social Forestry Business Group on Saturday
Wood Central understands that the coffee was shipped by the West Sumatra Social Forestry Business Group (KUPS) – with President Prabowo Subianto’s government identifying up to seven million hectares of potential land for social forestry.
Indonesia is a ‘standard risk’ under the EUDR’s new classifications.
Last month, Wood Central revealed that Indonesia – one of the world’s largest pulp, paper, palm oil and plywood producers – was classified as a standard (or medium) risk – one of 49 out of more than 194 countries – under the European Union’s new deforestation regulation. According to the European Commission, “the risk classification defines the extent of compliance checks that Member States’ competent authorities foresee among operators sourcing from different countries – for example, 1% for ‘low risk’, 3% for ‘standard risk’ and 9% for ‘high risk’.”
“In effect, this means that 1-out-of-every-100 forest products will be inspected from a low-risk country, 3-out-of-every 100 from a standard risk and 9-out-of-every 100 products from a high-risk country,” according to an official with an understanding of the new rules, who spoke to Wood Central on the condition of anonymity.
- To learn more about the new EUDR rules, click here for Wood Central’s story from earlier this month. And to learn why the new classification system runs the risk of adding to the flow of deforested products travelling through transhipment hubs, click here for Wood Central’s exclusive interview with Forest Trends.
