TROPICAL WOOD FROM INDONESIA

Wood as a product of a tree plays an important role in the national development. As foreign exchange earnings, timber in Indonesia had once occupied second place after oil in national exports. Wood processing and wood products are also important sources of employment, and income of the country. Wood in Indonesia is actually could be obtained from forestlands as well as from crops estates. Those from forestlands could be further distinguished into natural forest, plantation forest and community forest. Natural forest is mostly from Dipterocarp with more than one hundred native 'commercial' species including meranti with a specific gravity 0.55 which is usually used for making plywood, and also keruing, and kapur among others. Plantation forest initially in Java consists mainly of teak, with a specific gravity of about 0.65, the wood is used for furniture while in outer Java islands consist mainly of mangium wood trees, with a specific gravity of about 0.50 and is used as a raw material for making pulp and paper. Community forest consists of various fruit trees species but in the last decade the number of falcataria wood (specific gravity of 0.30) tree are increasing. The wood is used for making laminated wood. Trees from crop estates are commonly grown for the production of rubber such as rubber trees, which wood has a specific gravity of about 0.60. There is also oil palm tree stem which in the near future can he expected as an alternative substitution for wood material. Some others lesser used as well as lesser known species are also available as a substitution alternative wood which utilization remains to be further study and improved