Govt drops plan to raise logging quota this year

Govt drops plan to raise logging quota this year

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Ministry of Forestry has decided to drop its plan to raise
its logging quota this year after discovering that unscrupulous
timber companies were deliberately misreporting their demand.

Minister of Forestry Malam Sambat Kaban told The Jakarta Post
recently that a comprehensive and reliable audit was needed since
businesspeople, who had legal concessions, were not being honest
about their exact demand of timber and the capacity of their
plants.

"There is an attempt from (the companies) to 'legally' rake
increase their concession area and plant capacity by overstating
the actual domestic demand and then selling the excess wood
illegally overseas," he said.

Kaban said the audit would be conducted soon on the ground in
each of the registered companies by officials from the forestry
ministry and independent auditors.

The audit, which is expected to be completed before the end of
the year, may also help ensure the exact availability of timber
from the country's sustainable production forests and plantation
industry.

The ministry had planned to increase its logging quota from
5.45 million cubic meters to up to 30 million cubic meter this
year to meet domestic demand and help create employment.

The ministry argued that reducing the logging quota was not
the answer to curbing the illegal logging, because the low quota
has prompted most forestry-based companies to seek illegal timber
so they could sell overseas.

At present, the timber processing industry has an estimated
capacity of about 42 million cubic meters per year, but the
industry is flooded with illegal timber from already depleted
natural forests.

The great discrepancy between the demand and the available
logging quota has been cited as a key contributor to widespread
illegal logging across the country since former President
Soeharto provided privileges for businessmen willing to utilize
the country's forestry resources in early 1970s.

According to Kaban, their decisions on a logging quota are
based on demand, as reported by number of forestry based industry
associations. But the demand cannot be verified by his ministry
because it was not a result of an audit, but a mere estimate.

"I don't want to risk the sustainability of our forests
because of unreliable data. We have problems dealing with rampant
illegal logging and I don't want to exacerbate it by allowing the
forest concession groups to consume more timber from our forests
too," he said.

To cope with shortages in the legal timber supply, the
ministry has urged the industry to lower their collective reserve
capacity and to import logs or procure them from industrial
plantations.

The quota decrease was apparently decided upon as part of the
previous government's efforts to protect Indonesia's rapidly
diminishing natural forests.