Workshop of Standard Operating Procedures organised by Forestry, Processing & Marketing Division

A four-day workshop of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to meet the requirement set out under the Certification Support Programme (CSP) was recently organised by Yayasan Sabah Group through its Forestry, Processing and Marketing Division at Pulau Tiga Resort from May 25'" to May 28'",2005.

of the CSP towards attaining their Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Forest Certification.

Group Manager of Forestry, Processing & Marketing Division (FPMD) Yayasan Sabah Group, Encik Mohd Daud Tampokong in his speech said their division had aggressively pursued for the quest towards FSC Certification since their last Mesilau workshop held in July 2004 and these efforts have shown significant progress. He added, in terms of paperwork, the 2 Yayasan Sabah Group policies (Environmental and aSH) and all of the 13 SOPs required have been developed and endorsed by the Management albeit pending further fine-tuning to meet the requirements of FSC. FPMD is now working closely with Global Forestry Services (GFS) in having all these documents fully accepted by FSC.

Subsequently, he said, on the ground, most of the field implementations have taken off and currently on-going within FMU 15 and FMU 16 include the follOWing ie Establishment of Permanent Sample Plots, Forest Rehabilitation, Forest Mensuration Inventory, Ground Truthing 0 Satellite Imagery, Training and Human Resource Development in various technical/forestry aspects, Community Forestry Social Assessment and Occupational Safety and Health focusing in forest workers and contractors. "Besides the above, FPMD have also formalised an understanding with the Tropical Forest Trust (TFT) of which the latter will provide financial assistance for the execution of some of the CSP activities. We have also secured financial support from the Darwin Initiative Grant through the South East Asian Research Programme of the Royal Society, UK specifically for the High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) aspects of the CSP" En. Mohd Daud elaborated in his speech.

He end his speech by stressing that this workshop is a show of their commitment to revise and further improve the SOPs periodically as the gUidelines of their logging operational activities and in line with the requirement under the CSP. This workshop was facilitated by Dr. Kevin Grace of Global Forestry Services, Consultant, SGS Malaysia Sdn Bhd. With his presence, the participants were able to obtain direct feedback and decisive inputs in the process of reviewing all the documents.