Forest Management Overseas

• Basic Policy
• Forest Management Overseas

Basic Policy

As national governments throughout Southeast Asia strengthen their promotion of natural forest conservation, they are implementing restrictions on harvesting and exports, among other measures that reduce the supply of natural wood. In addition, as momentum toward SDGs and sustainable development increases, it has become necessary to convert to timber obtained through forest plantation and certified forest management practices that ensure both environmental consciousness and stable supply. The Sumitomo Forestry Group implements forest plantation operations that take local communities and ecosystems into consideration to enable a stable and sustained timber supply while helping to reduce the impact on natural forests.

Overseas Plantation Area (Unit: ha)

*1 The land area is calculated by conversion from the number of seedlings distributed at RPI. Vegetation determined to have withered is included in the harvest.

*2 Others includes data of environmental reforestation for social contribution and consulting business for other companies

*3 Includes plantation forest and logged area for land afflicted by forest fires in February 2019.

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Forest Management Overseas

The Sumitomo Forestry Group is expanding three approaches to conducting plantation forest operations; industrial tree plantation, environmental reforestation, and social forestry. The purpose of industrial tree plantation is to produce wood and increase the supply of plantation timber (raw material). By zoning its managed land appropriately, the Group aims to achieve both the conservation of valuable ecosystems and the development of local communities through plantation forest operations.

In addition, the Group also conducts environmental reforestation, planting trees for environmental conservation. It aims to contribute to environmental conservation through the expansion of forested areas and the fulfillment of the ecosystem services function of forests, by actively planting trees on land where natural regeneration would otherwise be difficult. The Group has also been engaged in “social forestry” which shares the economic benefits of forest plantation with local communities while enlisting the cooperation of local residents.

Sustainable Plantation Business by Leveraging Forestry Certification System

Of an approximately 30,000-hectare plantation owned and managed by OBT^* of Papua New Guinea, about two-thirds, or 20,000 hectares, has received FSC^® forest certification^*1. Under the goal to plant on the 500-hectare land a year, OBT practices sustainable forest management that lays basis for communities and environment to function in harmony. The area planted in fiscal 2019 was 491 hectares. Approximately 36,000 hectares managed by Tasman Pine Forests Ltd. (TPF) of New Zealand has been FSC^®-FM certified^*2. In fiscal 2019, they planted approximately 1,386 hectares of forest, carrying out sustainable forest management in harmony with the local community and environment.

* OBT: CW certification FSC-C019117, FM certification FSC-C103694, TPF: FM certification FSC-C132002

* TPF plantation area includes plantation forest afflicted by fire.

Plantation Forest Operations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia (Industrial Tree Plantation)

Since 2010, under the license from Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry permitting utilization of timber from commercial forests*, Sumitomo Forestry has been committed to a large-scale forest plantation business conducted in cooperation with the ALAS Kusuma Group, a company involved in forestry management and plywood manufacturing in Indonesia. The project covers areas in which forest degradation has advanced due to commercial harvesting from the 1960s to the mid-1990s in addition to repeated illegal logging and slash-and-burn farming practices. In these types of lands, Sumitomo Forestry Group actively uses devastated forests that are not economically viable as plantation forests while taking on the responsibility of preserving forests with high conservation value. In addition, we believe it is important to prevent further degradation of forests by providing an economic infrastructure to local communities through businesses.

The plantation land used in these operations exists in tropical peatland which plays an extremely vital role in the carbon water cycle on a global scale. Sumitomo Forestry launched these operations by conducting detailed typographical survey and a boring test to understand the peat distribution and depth at a level never achieved in the world before. We properly manage water according to the wealth of data gained through these surveys to control greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands and forest fires. This peatland management model is the first in the world to contribute greatly to measures that combat climate change. Even today, Sumitomo Forestry continues in efforts to improve peatland management models by using satellites, drones, and other leading-edge technologies.

* Issued by the Indonesian government, this is a business license to engage in industrial tree plantation operations in Indonesia. The license is valid for 60 to 100 years.

* In considering the value of forests, it goes beyond their value as absorbers of greenhouse gases, outlining methods of extracting each one of the many aspects of value forests contain. These aspects include their value as habitats of rare, endangered animal species, as water resources, as providers of essential natural services such as soil erosion control, and as land that has an intimate relationship with the lifestyles and cultures of local communities.

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