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wo prominent environmentalists criticized on Thursday President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s decision to protect small and medium furniture-makers and craft-producers, a sector within which he worked before deciding to become a politician and run for the mayorship of Surakarta in Central Java in 2005.

They lambasted the government'€™s plan to relax the use of the legality certification system (SVLK), in particular the V-Legal certificate '€” which confirms compliance with European Union (EU) timber regulations '€” in the sector.

To boost exports, the government had simplified the mandatory aspects of the SVLK, allowing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to issue supply conformity self-declarations (DE) on overseas shipments starting this year.

Indonesia Rattan Furniture and Craft Association (AMKRI) chairman Soenoto claimed the President had now agreed to exempt furniture and handicraft SMEs from the requirement.

'€œFinally the President has agreed for the SVLK to be non-applicable for furniture and craft products,'€ Soenoto said after meeting Jokowi on Wednesday.

If what Soenoto said was true, it would constitute a major setback in the country'€™s attempts to combat rampant illegal logging, Indonesian Independent Forest Monitoring Network (JPIK) national coordinator Mardi Minangsari said on Friday.

'€œIt means that Jokowi has hurt the long participatory process of multiple stakeholders that had been building the SVLK for more than a decade, as well as having violated the government'€™s commitment to reform the forestry and logging sector in Indonesia, which is plagued by illegality and corruption, both upstream and downstream,'€ she said.

The government introduced the SVLK in 2010 as part of a move to curb rampant illegal logging in the country. The certification is mandatory and has been applied in industrial forest concessions (HTI), production forest concessions (HPH) and community plantation forests (HTR).

The SVLK provides Indonesian producers with greater access to the global market, as it guarantees buyers that wood and wood-based products originate from legal practices and are sourced in an environmentally friendly manner.

The SVLK also bears special significance because Indonesia signed an agreement on legal timber trade with the EU in 2011.

'€œIf furniture is exempted, then it could damage the image of Indonesian timber as well as harm other industries that have been trying to improve their reputations. The image of Indonesian timber in the past was of illegal logs, and it'€™s been really hard to dispel that image,'€ Mardi commented.

Budget restraints have often hampered small-level producers from getting the SVLK, as the process was often very costly.

Jokowi, himself a furniture businessman since the 1980s, revealed last month that the obligation to obtain the SVLK made it difficult for SMEs to do business.

'€œThe claim that the SVLK is hampering businesses should be proven with valid data, not just anecdotes or statements,'€ said Hasbi Berliani from the Partnership for Government Reform (Kemitraan) on Friday.

Widayati Soetrisno of the Indonesian Furniture Entrepreneurs Association (Asmindo) said that without the SVLK, Indonesian furniture and crafts might not be accepted in international markets.

'€œI am afraid once our products arrive in Europe, they will ask for the legal certificates,'€ she said on Friday.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said that she was not aware of the President'€™s decision.

'€œI don'€™t know because I wasn'€™t there [during the meeting between Jokowi and Soenoto],'€ she said.