Indonesia is taking steps to reduce its exposure to deforestation months before the rollout of the European Union’s signature deforestation enforcement (the EUDR).
To meet the regulation’s strict requirements, Indonesia – amongst the EU’s largest suppliers of tropical timber – is looking to tackle the traceability of forest products that provide verifiable, real-time data that prove the legality and sustainability of commodities like palm oil, timber, and other forest-risk products.
Now, a new forest monitoring platform, Ground Truthed.id (GTID), aims to support this by documenting violations at the source, such as illegal oil palm plantations in forest zones, timber sourced from unlicensed concessions, and land conflicts, to complement satellite monitoring.
Denny Bhatara, a senior campaigner at Kaoem Telapak, the environmental NGO behind GTID, said this will make it easier to track where supply chain irregularities begin, especially in remote or hard-to-access areas.
“Many incidents occur that we might not be aware of due to distance or a lack of reporting mechanisms,” he told Mongabay today. “Through GTID, we gather all field-based documentation and compile it into a unified system.”
What sets GTID apart, Mr Bhatara said, is its focus on collecting real-time, verifiable geolocation-based evidence of environmental crimes from the ground up, unlike other platforms like Global Forest Watch (GFW), which start with satellite imagery before ground verification.
“This bottom-up method ensures the data reflect real-world conditions rather than just remote-sensing estimates,” he said. “This allows authorities to confirm whether deforestation is unlawful and, crucially, to act before irreversible environmental damage occurs.”
“Sometimes, when we receive information from remote areas, the damage has become massive and widespread. “[So] the faster we can share information, the better the chances of taking preventive action.”
GTID is currently available via web and Android apps for online and offline data collection.”
EUDR to Impact Every Part of the Timber Supply Chain
Last month, Wood Central reported that the EUDR could reduce timber imports from high-risk countries (including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil) by as much as 25% by 2050, and even peak at 38% if and when deforestation definitions are expanded to include agricultural conversion.
Led by Craig Johnston, Jingang Guo from the Louisiana State University Department of Agricultural and Agribusiness, and Jeffrey Prestemon from the US Forest Service, the researchers used the Forest Resource Outlook Model (FOROM) to simulate EUDR’s impact on production, trade, and pricing:
“The results indicate that high-deforestation countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia, are expected to face significant reductions in roundwood production and exports, with downstream effects on sawn wood and panel prices.” At the same time, low-deforestation countries, including Canada (1.4% increase) and the United States (0.1% increase), may experience slight increases in production to meet EU demand.”
- To learn more about EUDR readiness, click here to learn about a special webinar for Australian and New Zealand supply chains to be hosted in Melbourne next month.
