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)