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.