Indonesia covers about 181.2 million hectares, spread over 17,000 islands. About 70% of its land area is categorised as forested, with half allocated for production purposes. A significant proportion of the country’s forest area is degraded and/or destined for conversion.

Indonesia is one of the world's largest exporters of tropical timber products, which are produced from logging activities in natural forests, industrial plantations and household-managed small-scale plantings, as well as from imported timber. Indonesia exports a wide variety of timber products, ranging from plywood, pulp and paper to furniture and handicrafts. The value of this trade was US$ 9.3 billion in 2016.

The main export markets are in Asia (China, Japan and South Korea). Indonesia is also by far the biggest VPA-country trade partner of the EU, exporting timber products worth just over one billion euros in 2016.

In 2003, Indonesia started to develop an operator-based timber control system for all its timber exports, building on a mandatory third-party certification approach for legality and sustainability. The system, called SVLK, became the basis for the timber legality assurance system under Indonesia’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU. The VPA covers all exports, and its coverage will expand to include the domestic market on a stepwise basis.

On 15 November 2016 Indonesia began issuing FLEGT licences to verified legal timber products exported to the EU. In following 12 months, Indonesia issued more than 39,000 licences for shipments exported to all 28 EU Member States, with a total value of more than one billion euros (for more information see Indonesia’s SILK database).