Govt told to improve forestry sector data

Govt told to improve forestry sector data

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A non-governmental organization has called on the government to
provide comprehensive data on the forestry sector to help improve
the planning and monitoring of the country's fast-disappearing
forests.

Forest Watch Indonesia director Togur Manurung said on
Wednesday that the current data on the forestry sector was so
poor it had triggered mismanagement of the country's forests and
further led to natural disasters, such as floods and landslides.

"If the forestry data is not improved, the government will
continue to formulate poor strategies for managing our forests,"
he said.

"In some cases, the lack of data on forest destruction as a
result of illegal logging has made the government underestimate
the actual problem and take the wrong action in dealing with it."

Togur said the poor data on the forestry sector involved the
actual deforestation rate, forest fires damage, the total
concession area, and damage to protected forests and conservation
areas.

The government has indicated that 5.9 million hectares, or 18
percent of the country's 32 million hectares of protected forests
and conservation areas, have been destroyed. But critics insist
that the actual figure is much higher as the government does not
have enough data.

The government also revised the deforestation rate up from 1.5
million hectares per year in 2002 to 2.1 million hectares per
year in 2003.

Based on the government's data, the total area of forest and
mining concessions reaches some 200 million hectares, which was
clearly exaggerated given that the country's land area only
amounts to 191 million hectares.

The damage inflicted by forest fires between 1997 and 1998 was
also stated in a very wide range between 200,000 hectares and 5
million hectares in Indonesia's report to the World Summit for
Sustainable Development, while another official report said that
the area destroyed by forest fires had reached 10 million
hectares.

"I think it's the right time for the government to pay more
attention to forestry data if it really wants to improve the
management of the country's forests," Togur said.

"With the current sophisticated technology like satellite
imaging combined with field verification, it's not so difficult
to provide accurate data on forestry."

The government also had to give the public access to the
forestry sector in a bid to help them understand the actual
problems facing the sector, Togur added.

Head of the Forestry Planning Agency at the Ministry of
Forestry Boen M. Purnomo denied that the government data on
forestry was still deficient.

"I think our data on the forestry sector is improving as in
several cases we have used satellite images. But we admit that
our field data remains poor as many local governments perceive
the collection of data as simply being a waste of money," he
explained.

He said that the ministry had carried out satellite image
interpretation before releasing data on protected forest
destruction despite the controversy over the data.

On forest fire damage, he said that data discrepancies
occurred as forestry ministry staff did not monitor the
destruction simultaneously. "One set of data might be collected
during the early stages of a forest fire, while another set might
be collected later."