Government plans new land clearing method

Government plans new land clearing method

JAKARTA (JP): The government plans to introduce a new land
clearing method this year that does not involve burning the
trees.

Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo said that the
method will be tried at 120 land clearing projects.

"The method is more expensive and more time consuming,"
Siswono said during a review meeting on the new method at his
office on Friday, Antara reported. "But it is environmentally
sound and smokeless."

The previous method of burning trees was blamed for the thick
haze that covered most of Kalimantan and part of Sumatra,
Singapore and Malaysia for more than three months last year. It
disrupted air services, created health hazards and prompted the
governments of Singapore and Malaysia to demand Indonesia take
preventive steps.

The land clearing method being considered involves chopping
the trees down and using them for pulp. This will involve greater
costs and manpower Frans J. Daywin form the Bogor Agriculture
Institute and Sumangat form Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta
agreed during the meeting.

Both men concluded that the burning method is cheaper but
countered that these projects should not only be looked at form
economic terms but also from the social and environmental views.

Sumangat warned that the new method requires huge logistical
back up and that the workers will have to be trained to gather
the wood they have chopped as efficiently as possible.

Daywin calculates the cost of the new method to be about Rp
1.3 billion ($590) per hectare. The burning method costs Rp 600
million.

The United States and Malaysia already employ the chopping
method which is highly recommended by the United States-based
International Ad hock Land Clearing Development.

The new method has commercial value because the cut wood can
be gathered and sold to the pulp and paper industry.

Calculating whether the costs of transporting the wood will
cover the expense of the extra manpower and extra time needed for
the new method.

"This method is technically feasible and it is also socially
acceptable because it does less harm to the environment. But we
also need to study the commercial viability," Siswono said.

He said he doubted that the going price of Rp 70 a kilogram of
chips will be sufficient to cover the costs of gathering and
transporting them to the plant.

However, Gatot Ibnu Santoso, the Director of Pulp and Paper
Industry at the Ministry of Industry, told the meeting that
gathering the wood has potential value because the government is
increasingly barring pulp and paper manufacturers from using
chips obtained from natural forests.

Siswono said he has assigned Udju Djuana, the Director for
Field Preparation at the Ministry of Transmigration, to further
study the commercial viability of the method.

The ministry, he said, is willing to subsidize the cost of
transporting the chips. (29)