Forestry woes reflect local tragedy

Forestry woes reflect local tragedy

By Wimar Witoelar

JAKARTA (JP): The World Bank has endorsed more debt for the
government including forestry sector programs. This relates to an
important seminar held recently in Jakarta by the government and
sponsored by the World Bank.

An aftermath of last year's Conference of the Consultative
Group on Indonesia in Paris, the topic is the management of our
forests, an urgent topic overshadowed by Indonesia's troubled
transition.

The case studies shown in the seminar through 19 illustrations
brought attention to this problem. Everything, however, boiled
down to the fact that Indonesia's forests are disappearing. The
annual deforestation rate is 1.6 million hectares, nearly twice
the estimate published by the World Bank in 1994.

More than 17 million hectares have been lost in 12 years --
one-fourth of the forest coverage in 1985. The area burned down
in the 1997 to 1998 fires could cover a country as large as
Portugal or South Korea, and only 1 percent was caused by nature.

Lowland dry forest -- the most valuable forest type for
logging and biodiversity conservation -- is disappearing fastest,
essentially gone in Sulawesi, and set to vanish from Sumatra by
2005 and Kalimantan by 2010.

Most importantly, the original keepers of the forest --
customary (adat) communities who have managed the forests
carefully and productively for thousands of years -- are being
driven out of their habitat.

Whether it is the forests or the banks, the roots of the problem are
caused by disrespect for ourselves as a nation. They come together:
corruption, human rights abuse, natural resource degradation. All for private
gain, public loss.

Take the tax loss from illegal logging. At the old cubic meter
values of the U$11 reforestation fund and $6 of royalty, and
using the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations estimate of 30
million cubic meters of illegal logging in 1998, the public loss
approaches $500 million.

Furthermore, you cannot quantify a moral issue.

The public violations interact and amplify each other cross-
sectorally from Bank Indonesia liquidity credits to logging
conglomerates, from militaristic practices to the criminalization
of traditional forest-based communities.

It is important to distinguish between the previous and the
current governments.

A former forestry minister mentioned that some of the crimes
against the forest were technically not legal violations back
then, because it was not until last September that laws
restricted actions of people in the past.

It confirms that the lack of legislation left the forests prey
the political culture of violence and corruption, but the
minister's point is well taken.

New laws and a new government have a chance to save the
forests. People do care about the forests, but not enough of
them. The die-hard activists, dedicated non-governmental
organizations and international donors only slow down the loss.
Previous governments seem to have accelerated, not stopped,
deforestation.

Disinformation has skewed public opinion. Some even say,
"Maybe it is not that bad". Is this the Stockholm syndrome? Being
oppressed for so long, do some believe their oppressors more than
their liberators?

The causes of the problem are clear. Forest fires which
consumed more than 5 million hectares in 1997-1998 were started
by large corporations who sought to convert forestland into
plantations.

Mines, plantations and settlements converted forests without
regard to forest boundaries. Logging concessions are stimulated
by the wrong incentives: it is more lucrative to clear forestland
for plantations than to plant on open and unproductive land.

On top of that, illegal logging is pushed by the greed of
people who have been given permits to construct and operate
plants with capacity far in excess of any amount of timber they
could source legally from our forests.

These timber tycoons are rich, powerful and motivated. The
seminar showed an excellent video of one of these illegal
operations. A few days before the talks, the Indonesian activist
who appeared in this video and a British citizen were beaten and
kidnapped for days by the illegal loggers. A final blow to forest
sustainability is the rejection of the direct stakeholders --
rural communities and traditional forest dwellers -- which
sometimes lead to destruction.

What next? We have hope in the current government but they
need prompting from NGOs, funding agencies, the media, political
groups and the general public.

Strength now lies in information, knowledge, networks. Power
is not in the hands of political parties because now the NGOs,
the academics and the media are the political leaders.

In a country where legitimacy of political parties is still
questionable, the strength is in civil society.

No national issues are ever sector-specific. The question is
not "Is there a future for the Indonesian forests?" but "Is there
a future for Indonesia?"

The answer lies in our political will to reverse self-
destruction to empowerment. It is difficult. Social discipline
has broken down, the economy is gasping for life and people's
emotions are being provoked into ever-threatening spirals of
discord and violence.

But now we can talk, we can hope because we are heard -- and
we can change things. In the old days the question was: "Which
regulation?" Now we face shifting paradigms. The question is,
"What do we want?" All laws and regulations need substantial
review when matters of principle still need to be addressed. Conspicuously,
the urgency of adat communities is still underplayed.

An honest recognition of their legitimacy should return
forests to their rightful keepers. A crash program is still
called for in the form of a moratorium on conversion of natural
forests, also for aggressive replanting to meet industrial needs.

We have heard that several donors are ready to commit or
recommit funds to the sector if there is a commensurate
government commitment. In the absence of such a commitment,
donors might reevaluate their own existing programs and hesitate
to start new ones.

In the case of the World Bank, they say: "Our management is
going to ask, after this meeting, is there anything promising to
pursue? If the answer is no, we have other priorities." Now that
sounds like bad news, but is it really?

Apart from everything else, holding down our national debt
might not be a bad idea. Should we go forward, can we be more
selective in increasing our debt burden? Some say past debt has
been responsible for the perceived support of the Soeharto
government by the international funding community.

Who will pay for past corruption, collusion and nepotism? Is
it logical to increase debt without punishing profiteers who
abused foreign loans? A moratorium on debt payments is seen as
more sensible just than getting back on the debt treadmill. But
is that feasible? The answer to these questions will have to be
found in our fledgling democratic system.

The writer is a commentator on sociopolitical affairs and a
talk show host.