Date : June 20, 2019
Yesterday, MFCC met with Wai Yan Aung (Project Coordinator) and Emmanuelle Andaya, a consultant for NTFP-EP, doing a study on Non-Timber Forest Products Standards (NTFP) in the Philippines. The Non-timber Forest Product – Exchange Programme (NTFP-EP) Asia is a regional non-government organisation working in the Asian region that has been working on sustainable forest management and community livelihoods through the development of the NTFP sector for over 25 years. It has offices in the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and locally-based partners in Vietnam and India.
Discussion included how important was the NTFP now, in terms of contributing national economy and helping people and how Myanmar has been trying to implement through sustainable management towards those Non-timber forest products.
And if Myanmar try to grow the sectors of NTFP and commercialization in the future, what would be other challenges if we move forward through NTFP products, like effecting the sustainability for the supply and urgent need for it certification and legality and sustainability of the NTFP.
MFCC also express the desire to have some documents or standards for those NTFP if needed in the future and also would like to corporate with the other organisations too.
And the other objectives include:
1) Investigate and map out the existing Standards Frameworks for NTFPs within ASEAN countries and at ASEAN level
2) Determine the awareness level, knowledge/understanding level and mastery of NTFP stakeholders (government, private sector, producers, trader etc) on NTFP standards
3) Determine the extent of the facilities, technology, human resource development programs available in each of the ASEAN countries in relation to standards
4) Determine for which products that standards and certifications/ guarantee systems exist and the corresponding compliance level per country
5) Determine the Human Resource, Legal, Infrastructure, Technology gaps with regards to NTFP standards in ASEAN and recommendations to fill them
