Europe backs RI's illegal-logging war
Europe backs RI's illegal-logging war
Eileen Ng, Agence France-Presse, Johannesburg
Indonesia has secured Europe's support to boycott wood and wood-
based products without clear origins as it takes its longstanding
war against illegal logging to the Earth Summit here in the hope
of a breakthrough.
State Minister for Environment Nabiel Makarim said he had
sealed memoranda of understandings with Norway and Finland over
the weekend to stop imports of such products, after a similar
pact with Britain a few months ago.
The European Union has also pledged support and was preparing
an "umbrella agreement" for its members on the matter, he said.
"They are fully supporting us by building capacity to
implement this -- on the laws required, the officials to control
it and the facilities that are needed in European ports," Nabiel
told AFP in an interview.
"This is on top of our agenda: how to stop the demand (for
illegal timber)."
Europe, Japan and Australia are the final markets for
Indonesian illegal timber which is often shipped to neighboring
countries such as Singapore or Malaysia to be processed for
export, environmentalists say.
Corruption within the police, customs and navy means that many
of these timber shipments carry documentation showing them as
legal, they say.
An epidemic of illegal logging -- fueled by corruption and
lawlessness -- doubled Indonesia's deforestation rate in the late
1990s and prompted conservationists to warn that sprawling
forests in its vast archipelago might disappear within five to 15
years.
Its forest cover fell from 162 million hectares in 1950 to
only 98 million hectares in 2000.
"If it goes on like this, in five years, we will have no more
meaningful sizable forests," Nabiel said.
He acknowledged that corrupt and incompetent law enforcers
were responsible for the rampant deforestation, but said the new
government under President Megawati Soekarnoputri had taken bold
steps to clean up the administration.
"We have nothing to hide. There are many apparent weaknesses
in the government apparatus and our environment is not conducive
for law and environment," he said.
"It's easy to say 'political will' but that is an elusive
word. We are fighting all the way and mostly we tend to lose but
we still continue and we hope for a breakthrough soon.
"We cannot have business as usual. There must be courageous,
creative ways to solve our problems."
Indonesia has banned log and woodchip exports to protect its
forests and Nabiel has proposed setting up a court to prosecute
environmental looters.
He listed three new plans to curb corruption and boost law
enforcement.
"Formula 12" involves the appointment of 12 "able and clean"
judges to sit in the special environmental court with every case
to be tried by three judges. It has received the nod from the
justice department, the attorney general and the Supreme Court,
and will be implemented soon, he said.
The ministry was also exploring a new law to allow
environmental experts -- whether from the government, private
sector or non-governmental organization -- to act as judges,
Nabiel said.
It has also proposed that all judges be made accountable to
parliament for court rulings but this was "controversial because
it can be translated as legislative taking over the judiciary,"
he said.
"Many judges refuse to explain their rulings by saying that
they are responsible only to God and my answer is, so was Louis
XVI" (who was beheaded during the French revolution), he added.
Indonesia joined forces with Japan on Thursday to launch a
regional forestry program to help battle illegal logging, as well
as forest fires and haze.
The Asia Forestry Partnership, involving 12 countries and
eight global organizations, will boost Indonesia's forest law
enforcement and resources to protect its depleting forests,
officials said.