Thu, 03 Feb 2000

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.