Environmental Outlook 2006

Environmental Outlook 2006
The problems of environment in the years to come

E.G. Togu Manurung
Bogor

Indonesia is blessed with some of the most extensive and
biologically diverse tropical forests in the world.

But the tragedy is that Indonesia has one of the highest rates
of tropical forest loss in the world. Minister of Forestry M.S.
Kaban, in his many speeches at various events, repeatedly warns
that Indonesia's forests are under serious threat.

Based on forest cover interpretations of landsat images ETM-7
in 2000, of 120.3 million hectares of total forest area, 59.7
million hectares were degraded. The average annual rate of
deforestation for the last five years has been 2.8 million
hectares. If the current problem of forest loss continues, it is
estimated that all natural forests of Indonesia will be gone
within 15 years.

The country now finds itself the unwelcome center of world
attention, as domestic and international outrage mounts over the
rampant destruction of a great natural resource. Indonesia's
economy is plagued by lawlessness and corruption. Illegal logging
has been rampant for years and is believed to have destroyed tens
of millions of hectares of forest.

Indonesia's wood-processing industries operate in a strange
legal twilight, in which wood processing mills obtain more than
half their wood supplies from illegal sources. Timber is
routinely smuggled across the border to neighboring countries,
costing the Indonesian government millions of dollars in lost
revenue each year.

More than 35 years of bad forestry management and logging
operations are responsible for the heavy forest degradation, the
depletion of forest resources and massive and life-threatening
environmental problems across the archipelago. Other main factors
is the conversion of natural forests (land clearing) to develop
timber plantations, oil palm plantations and transmigration
resettlements areas, and forest loss due to forest fires and open
pit mining operations.

The implementation of regional autonomy in the beginning of
2001 has had a devastating effect on the forestry sector, with
uncontrolled exploitation leading to the further depletion of an
important and vital natural resource on which the people of
Indonesia rely for their livelihood and survival.

There is no doubt that illegal logging is one of the most
pressing issues facing Indonesia today. In spite of all the
attention and the strong words in recent years, and following the
government's tougher illegal logging policy this year, illegal
logging continues unabated, and the rate of forest loss has
actually accelerated.

Illegal logging has reached epidemic proportions as a result
of Indonesia's chronic structural imbalance between legal wood
supply and demand. The problem of overcapacity in the wood
processing industry continues. According to the Ministry of
Forestry, total effective demand for wood to feed domestic wood
processing mills is 63.4 million cubic meters, but total log
production is 22.8 million cubic meters. The huge gap between
demand and the supply of wood, i.e. 40.6 million cubic meters, is
supplied by illegal logs from illegal logging operations.

The total economic loss to the country from illegal logging is
estimated in the range of Rp 31 trillion to Rp 41 trillion a
year, or US$3 to 4 billion annually. This does not include the
environmental costs and social costs that occur due to the
destruction of tropical forest ecosystems, with estimated values
of several times higher than the total economic loss of revenue
for the government.

Illegal logging and the illegal trade that facilitates this
has reached crisis levels. The root cause of this is corruption
and nonexistent law enforcement. In addition, the problems of
poverty and unemployment in the remote districts that are rich in
forest resources have forced some people who live in these areas
to get involved in the quick and dirty business of illegal
logging, financed by the big financiers who work together as an
organized crime ring with corrupt government officials.

In 2005 we saw the government introduce a tougher illegal
logging policy. Presidential Instruction No. 4/2005 was issued by
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in which the President
instructed 18 government institutions to work together to combat
illegal logging and the illegal trade of logs all over Indonesia.
It worked for a while.

But the success did not last very long. There are almost daily
media reports of illegal logging and the illegal trade in logs
across the country. This happens because demand for cheap illegal
Indonesian timber from consuming nations continues, and does the
problem of overcapacity in the domestic wood processing industry.

Another serious source of forest destruction is open pit
mining operations in protected forests. The government has
allowed such activities through the enactment of Law No. 19/2004,
which revised Law No. 41/99 that banned open pit mining in
protected forests.

Six mining companies have been granted exploration permits by
the government to work in protected forest areas. In 2006 and
beyond, more mining companies will be operating open pit mines in
protected forests, completely destroying almost one million
hectares of tropical forest.

The continued destruction of the forest will eventually lead
to environmental changes that will threaten our very way of life.

We are racing against time, and in fact are running out of
time to save Indonesia's remaining tropical forests. If we fail,
we will only reap disaster because nature cannot be compromised.

The author is a senior lecturer at the Department of Forestry,
Bogor Institute of Agriculture. He was the director of Forest
Watch Indonesia from 2000 to 2004.