Demand for legal and sustainable timber products limit what can and cannot be sold in the global marketplace. The minimum standard demanded by global buyers nowadays is that the timber products need to be absolutely legal. For which, the Government of Indonesia has set up a Verification System for Timber Products Legality (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu, SVLK). The sustainability aspects of the products are met through third party standards. In addition to SVLK itself, third party sustainability standards include Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Indonesian Ecolabel Institute (Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia, LEI), and Indonesian Forestry Certification Cooperation / Programme for the Endorsment of Forest Certification (IFCC/ PEFC).

Responsible Timber Exchange (RTX) is a digital marketplace platform to facilitate global trading of legally and sustainably-produced timber products, including from Indonesia. RTX is developed by BVRio in Brazil. Landscape Indonesia promotes the use of RTX by local companies wishing to reach out to global buyers. RTX now has information of more than 100,000 sellers and buyers of legal and sustainable timber products, more than 10,0o0 of which are active members and users of the platform.

The use of RTX may break the fatigue currently experienced by exporters of timber products. They have begun to see no real trade benefits of offering responsibly-certified timber products. RTX may offer marketing incentives for responsibly-certified timber products to reach out and be exposed to much larger export markets, compared to non-certified products.

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