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span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">Cooperation: Abdul Rahman (front), an activist with the Network for Forests (JAUH), stands with members of the Prosperous Sustainable Forest Cooperative (KHJL) in September in the middle of harvested timber. Together with KHJL he is working to take forest waste and turn it into homemade items. Courtesy of Feri LatiefThe chairman of the Prosperous Sustainable Forest Cooperative, Warma Syahmedi, 40, has an interesting tale.

The migrant from West Java openly admits that before he was active in the cooperative, he worked as a farmer and practiced illegal logging.

“Actually, besides being a farmer, we were illegal loggers,” he says with a wry smile. “I would go into the forest and tell people to fell trees, which I would then buy. I would move them, playing a cat-and-mouse game with rangers. If I ever was approached by a ranger I had to admit I did not have papers. Then we would have to [bribe] the rangers to get off the hook.”

However, the local community frowned on Warma’s work, and he began to realize that what he was doing was wrong. “I wanted to change because I felt that the community did not approve of what I was doing,” he says.

The opportunity came in 2003, when a nongovernmental organization called the Network for Forests (JAUH), in collaboration with the Forestry Ministry, introduced the Social Forestry program. This program allows communities to become the main stakeholders in managing state forests. Thus, in 2004, a Social Forestry group was formed by the residents of 46 villages in South Konewa in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi. The group changed its name to the Prosperous Sustainable Forest Cooperative (KHJL), and now has 747 members managing 799,939 hectares of forest. They chose to form a cooperative because it offered a more participatory and democratic decision-making process.

Access to manage forests independently gave Warma Syamedi and other illegal loggers a way to earn money from forest products legally. He admits he gained many benefits from joining the cooperative.

“I received many things such as free plant seeds, training, profit sharing and a sales price that is around 300 percent higher than illegal wood prices.” The hike in prices is because KHJL receives certification that shows that its wood is felled from forests that are managed sustainably.

Sultan, 40, a JAUH member who supports KHJL, says many aspects are evaluated in the certification process, for example the form of institution, community involvement as well as the economic and social value of its activities. Wood management systems are also evaluated, from planting to felling, as well as the system used to track wood.

“If only one of the criteria is not met, certification is not granted,” Sultan says. This certification process ensures that communities manage forests sustainably.

KHJL has now obtained permission to produce up to 3,000 cubic meters of certified wood per year. However, a new problem has emerged in that up to 40 percent of the wood it fells is being wasted during the process.

Despite this wood being classified as waste, it is certified wood and worth a large amount.

Abdul Rahman, 40, the business unit chief of KHJL was overwhelmed when he saw the massive amount of wood going to waste in the backyard of the KHJL timber mill. There are several types of wood waste there including roots, tips, branches and off cuts.

“I estimate that over the next six years KHJL will produce 70,000 cubic meters of wood with 28,000 cubic meters of wood waste.” But Abdul does not want this wood to be seen as having no value.

Inspired by Jepara, Indonesia’s main center of manufactured wooden products and recognizing the potential of the waste wood at KHJL, members of JAUH in 2007 took up an initiative and began discussing ways to utilize this wood waste to make handicrafts and furniture.

The only limitation is that Ken-dari does not have skilled artisans and wood product designers such as those in Jepara, even though the Kendari market for processed wood products is quite large. Ironically, almost all the manufactured wood products sold there are imported from Jepara.

Abdul Rahman formulated several steps to make Kendari more like Jepara. “First, we will strengthen the home industry network.

“Then, we must strengthen our cooperation with our market by signing an MoU. Then, we must create new designs. And then, most importantly, we must increase the community’s capacity to capitalize on the [certification].”

Abdul plans to develop a network and create direct links with foreign clients, as Jepara and Bali have done. He believes that the community, especially members of the cooperative, will support what he is doing.

“Our management is trusted because its financial management system is accountable. We have a transparent management system.” While his project is ambitious, Abdul is certain that within five or six years, wood-waste products from Kendari will be seen as equal to those from Jepara.

It is worth noting that wood products from KHJL have something that is hard to find among most of the wood products from Jepara. “[Our] raw materials are certified. This means our raw materials are managed sustainably under an accountable management system,” Abdul says.

Through the Community Entrepreneurs Challenge, the British Council supported by the Arthur Guinness Fund is working together to identify and support potential community-based social enterprises in Indonesia by providing capacity building and networking opportunities developed from UK best practice. Champions also receive seed funding to support their social businesses. KHJL is one of the six program finalists