The Borneo Initiative

The Borneo Initiative is a foundation established in 2008, registered in the Netherlands, with offices in the Netherlands and Indonesia. Their mission is to prevent the loss of tropical forests to deforestation or their degradation because of over-exploitation.

Their target is to contribute directly to the increase of certified natural forest areas in Indonesia, from 1.1 million hectares in 2009 via 4 million by the end of 2013, up to 5 million by the end of 2014 and even 9 million in 2016.

We coordinate all our operations in Indonesia with the Indonesian Association of Forest Concessionaires (APHI), with whom we signed a formal MoU on March 20th, 2013. They also operate under a formal MoU with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), valid until August 2014. Together they operate as a platform that forges partnerships between various organisations on the ground such as TFF, TFT, TNC and GFTN as well as with standard-setting bodies (such as MoF and FSC), forest concessions and overseas timber trading companies.

We offer forest enterprises (i.e forest concessions) a subsidy of 2 USD/ha, with a maximum available subsidy of USD 300,000. At the same time, we offer a higher subsidy of 3 USD/ha to smaller forest concessions between 35,000 and 75,000 ha, with a ceiling of USD 150,000. The concessionaire can use this grant to pay specific certification costs.

Their primary focus is the Indonesian part of Borneo (Kalimantan), but coverage is to expand over time to include Malaysia and Papua New Guinea as well. We link up players at either end of the marketing chain whose cooperation is required to mobilize the commodity chain: the wood suppliers in Indonesia and the end users of tropical timber products in Europe or USA. Thus, market parties become the agents of change for forest conservation.