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.