Pledge to preserve forests needs dust off<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Post
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
Former state minister of environment Emil Salim, who went to
\nthe Rio de Janeiro world summit in 1992, must be disappointed.<\/p>\n
Not only has the government failed to follow up its pledges
\nunder the Rio declaration, forests are disappearing faster today
\nthan at anytime in the past.<\/p>\n
Experts said Indonesia will have to revive its 10-year-old
\npledge at upcoming talks on sustainable development, as rapid
\ndeforestation would render new commitments useless.<\/p>\n
"I don't see much use of any summit if we don't stick to their
\nagreements," said Tedjo Wahyu Jatmiko of Konphalindo, a
\nconsortium promoting forest conservation.<\/p>\n
The second summit on sustainable development will be held in
\nJohannesburg, South Africa from late August to September.<\/p>\n
Over the next two weeks Bali will hold the final round of
\ntalks to produce the draft of the agreement that world leaders
\nwill sign in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
Tedjo said he hoped the preparatory meeting in Bali would
\nrestore the government's commitment, and this time for good.<\/p>\n
"I have yet to see the impact of the Rio declaration we agreed
\nto 10 years ago," he said.<\/p>\n
In 1992 at Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations Conference on
\nEnvironment and Development -- known as the Earth Summit --
\nadopted a declaration outlining countries' rights and
\nresponsibilities towards the environment.<\/p>\n
Participants also adopted Agenda 21: a blueprint for greener
\ndevelopment in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
In 1997 Indonesia set up its national Agenda 21, covering
\nsectors like energy, mining, human settlement and forestry.<\/p>\n
However efforts to break down the agenda into supporting
\nregulations in the forestry sector have came to nothing.<\/p>\n
"I once asked officials about the agenda, and no one appears
\nto have heard of it," Tedjo said.<\/p>\n
Instead forest exploitation has gone from bad to worse.<\/p>\n
Indonesia is home to the world's second largest area of
\ntropical forests: 108.5 million hectares.<\/p>\n
But with between 1.6 million to 2.1 million hectares of
\nforests disappearing each year, deforestation here ranks among
\nthe fasted in the world, according to the Ministry of Forestry.<\/p>\n
It is the result of a 40-year-old policy that puts forest
\nsustainability behind short-term economic goals.<\/p>\n
While revenue flows, trees disappear. Kalimantan's forests
\ncould vanish in nine years, Sumatra's lowland forests in four,
\naccording to the World Bank projection.<\/p>\n
The government estimates 294 flora and fauna species are
\nthreatened by the rapid deforestation.<\/p>\n
Humans too feel the consequence as is evident in the rising
\nincidents of landslides and flooding.<\/p>\n
The latter hit Jakarta early this year, killing at least 45
\npeople and displacing thousands of others for weeks.<\/p>\n
In danger is also the future of around 60 million people whose
\nlife depends on forest resources, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n
Resource scarcity has led to increased conflicts among forest
\ncommunities. Looting intensified in forest areas owned by timber
\noperations.<\/p>\n
Tedjo said Agenda 21 was meant to anticipate these problems.<\/p>\n
But of the various sectors the national agenda outlines and
\nthe government followed up on, only the forestry sector was left
\nwithout the needed regulations, he said.<\/p>\n
"This (Johannesburg summit) has always been viewed as a
\nproject of the Ministry of Environment, so I guess they failed to
\nsecure the support of other ministries, including the Ministry of
\nForestry."<\/p>\n
Outside the government, business interests more often than
\nnot, work against sustainable forest management efforts.<\/p>\n
To be sure, the forestry industry shares the same concern of
\npreserving forest areas to ensure long term supply.<\/p>\n
But the ongoing mass conversion of forest for production shows
\nquicker ways exist to cover the question of supply.<\/p>\n
Concerns over replenishment have also become more immediate.<\/p>\n
In one example, Asia's largest pulp and paper concern outside
\nJapan, the Singapore based Asia Pulp & Paper Company Ltd. (APP)
\nscrambles to secure more trees for its giant mills in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
With US$13.9 billion in debts it cannot pay, pressure mounts
\nfor APP to increase output to make any debt restructuring
\nproposals look feasible.<\/p>\n
APP's case may be extreme, but supply shortfalls plague many
\nothers in the industry and undermine their current commitment to
\nsustainable forest management.<\/p>\n
And while the forestry industry at least takes part in the
\ndiscussion on sustainable development, illegal loggers do not.<\/p>\n
Their foray into Indonesian forests go unabated. The World
\nBank said Indonesia was loosing $600 million a year from the
\nillegal export of timber.<\/p>\n
Environmentalists valued the annual loss at Rp 3 trillion
\n(about $3.2 billion), and called this a conservative estimate.<\/p>\n
There is suspicion local companies, faced with a supply
\nshortfall at home, resort to importing back Indonesian timber
\nthat was illegally exported to Malaysia. Others derive their
\nsupply from illegal loggers.<\/p>\n
Against this multitude of problems, the draft sets out a new
\napproach towards forestry management through five steps.<\/p>\n
They include reaching a national consensus for the creation of
\nan overarching forest management policy; revising laws and
\nregulations with greater public participation; empowering
\nindigenous people of the forests in the planning and
\nimplementation and evaluation of forest management policies.<\/p>\n
But for this to happen, Indonesia's overall stance towards
\nsustainable development must become stronger, said environmental
\nexpert Mas Achmad Santosa.<\/p>\n
"There must be an emphasize on good governance. The absence of
\nthis has been the weakness of the Rio declaration," he said.<\/p>\n
According to him, good governance implies the presence of a
\ncivil society.<\/p>\n
Political and social reforms following the 1997 economic
\ncrisis paved the way for a civil society to emerge, said the
\ngovernment in a draft statement about the national Agenda 21.<\/p>\n
"The multi-fold crisis that hit Indonesia in 1997 is a
\nvaluable lesson which serves as a wake-up call on the
\nunsustainability of our development program," it said.<\/p>\n
Let's hope this lesson will stick when Indonesia commits
\nitself again towards sustainable forest management in
\nJohannesburg.<\/p>",
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