Facing up to destruction of forests

Facing up to destruction of forests

By Suhardi Suryadi

JAKARTA (JP): At the October meeting of the Consultative Group
on Indonesia in Tokyo, a number of donor countries raised the
crucial issue of forest devastation in Indonesia. The commitment
of the Indonesian government to forest conservation even became
one requirement for the extending of further loans. Given the
present condition of Indonesia's forests, the CGI's political
pressure on Indonesia is understandable.

The past five years have witnessed various parties committing
rampant forest destruction in all provinces. Damage to forest
functions seems indiscriminate as it is found in protected
forests and other conservation areas like national parks. The
fatal inundations and landslides that hit Nias Island recently
may be taken as an example of how forest devastation can inflict
huge damage in terms of loss of life and material losses.

There is mounting concern over forest devastation in
Indonesia following the increasing intensity of deforestation. Up
to 1998 alone, deforestation involved up to 2 million hectares a
year. The World Resource Institute even estimated in 1987 that
the loss of virgin forest stood at 70 percent owing to excessive
domestic consumption and the export of forest products. In the
estimation of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi),
the demand of the timber industry for forest products, both
domestically and for export, stands at about 100 million cubic
meters, of which 21.9 million cubic meters come from imports.

The remaining 78.1 million cubic meters must therefore come
from primary forests while, in fact, the natural forest
regeneration process has only a very low level of success.

In spite of the trillions of rupiah invested in reforestation
and forest conservation, the government and forest
concessionaires alike have scarcely managed to produce any of the
desired results. For about 30 years forest concessionaires have
been largely responsible for extensive damage to an estimated 48
million hectares of forests across the country.

Viewed from their biodiversity value and the loss sustained,
the revenues contributed by the forest concessionaires to the
state's coffers have been very insignificant. Worse, part of
these revenues go into the pockets of high-ranking officials and
their cronies who ironically blame locals as the culprits for the
damage.

One of the main factors contributing to forest devastation
have also been inconsistency in the policies adopted and hence
demoralization. The government's policy on forest development as
set forth in the laws and action plans has been unable to
effectively guarantee the success of forest conservation and the
improvement of public welfare. The wordings in the regulations
can be construed as ambivalent in nature and the policies
themselves are more oriented towards generating foreign exchange
earnings, making it relatively easy for interested parties to use
or abuse loopholes.

Situations fraught with corruption, collusion and nepotism
for over 30 years have made forestry officers demoralized in
enforcing the law.

Public dissatisfaction over unjust sharing of forest resources
and the government's inability to implement good governance has
added to forest destruction.

A study by Indonesia's Transparent Society showed that 74 out
of 925 ministerial forest concessions issued by the forestry
ministry during the period 1995-2000 deviating from existing
rules.

The government's leniency in implementing the law is seen from
its failure to revoke the concession of PT Angkawijaya even after
the company was proved to have blatantly committed illegal
logging and gravely harmed the ecosystem of the productive forest
around the Rinjani National Park in Lombok, despite the fact that
the company is no longer in operation.

Government Regulation No. 6 1999 stipulates that a
concessionaire can only get a maximum forest area of 100 hectares
within a province. Yet PT Suka Jaya Makmur has a total area of
171,350 hectares in West Kalimantan while six other companies
have total forest areas of 1,28 million hectares in six
provinces.

Indonesia will pay a high price for this inconsistency. The
people who felt that they had been robbed of the land or deprived
of their "rights" to the forests during the New Order are now
going on the rampage, cutting the trees down, intimidating
concessionaires or annexing their concessions.

The government's failure in forest development is
attributable to three factors:

First, the government has failed to safeguard forest
conservation from certain parties who have access to power and
capital.

Second, the government has been unable to manage sustainable
forest resources by developing non-timber related products and
services as a source of revenues.

Third, the government has failed to develop the local human
resources living in and around forest areas and to boost
awareness of their responsibilities and participation in forest
conservation.

Indonesian forests, it is often said, are the lungs of the
world. Nearly 60 million people in this country are heavily
dependent on forest resources, including water. The forests here
are on the brink of the tolerable limit of destruction as nearly
70 percent of the total area has been severely damaged. In the
meantime, many issues concerning the environment raised in the
reform agenda have hardly been responded to by the government.
There has been no significant change in political policy over
forestry except for minor amendments to the legislation and small
measures taken involving a limited role for society.

Timber exploitation by powerful parties is still rampant under
the pretext of the national interest, even though it deprives the
local people of their rights.

The new freedom of each region to implement its own policy on
development may have lately added to the pace of forest damage as
some areas with limited economic resources have tended to make
use of their forests as the main source of locally-generated
income.

In East Kalimantan, by only paying Rp 200 million, one can
easily secure a concession from the forestry ministry for the
right to manage a 100-hectare forest plot. And in Jember, East
Java, the local administration has issued gold mining concessions
for the Metu Betiri National Park.

We always face the dilemma of competing claims arising from
forest conservation and economic development, making resources
development a complex matter involving international and national
interests. The plan to grow one million plants is only wishful
thinking and will not produce anything of value.

The real challenge for the government is to synchronize the
aspects of social justice with the agenda of forest development.
Failure to do this will confirm public perception that the
appointment of the Minister of Forestry M. Prakosa from the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle is designed to turn the
ministry into the party's cash cow.

The writer is Deputy Director for the Jakarta-based Institute of
Research, Education and Information (LP3ES).