Greed and corruption killing Indonesian forests, wildlife

Greed and corruption killing Indonesian forests, wildlife

By Joe Cochrane

TANJUNG PUTING, Central Kalimantan (DPA): The residents of
this remote tropical rainforest on Indonesia's half of Borneo
island do not know much about the country's historic attempt at
democracy after 32 years of dictatorship.

But they do know that it has destroyed their homes, depleted
their food sources and decimated their population by as much as
one-third since 1998.

These "people of the forest," or orangutans, are on the firing
line in the march toward Indonesian democracy. Along the way,
greed, corruption, lawlessness and violence are threatening to
destroy one of the world's greatest centers of biodiversity.

"The tragedy of democracy is going to be the environment,"
said Jatna Supriatna, country director of Conservation
International, a U.S.-based environmental group. "It's anarchy.
People are trying to grab what they can."

The orangutans of Tanjung Puting, the largest national park on
Borneo (the Indonesian part is also known as Kalimantan), had a
measure of protection during Soeharto's regime. But as the
strongman's grip began slipping in the 1990s, so did the taboo
against loggers openly encroaching into the country's
conservation areas.

"In Borneo, the massive destruction of the habitat came out of
nowhere, and it's not just Tanjung Puting, it's everywhere," said
Dr. Birute Galdikas, the world's foremost expert on orangutans,
who runs the famed Camp Leaky research and rehabilitation center
inside the park.

"Easy money is like a narcotic and people are so addicted to
it," she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur during an interview.

The number of orangutans, one of humans' closest relatives,
has dwindled to about 15,000 on Borneo, and on Sumatra the
population could be as few as 5,000. These docile apes have
rocketed to the top of Indonesia's endangered species list, which
stands at 128, and could vanish from the wild within two decades.

Indonesia's attempts at democracy have been chaotic for its
210 million people, but disastrous for its wildlife and
environment. Moves to give control of forestry, mining and other
natural resources to the provinces has emboldened greedy feudal
warlords with little regard for the environment and even less for
the Jakarta government.

The World Bank estimates that illegal logging, already
rampant, has increased on Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Irian
Jaya since Soeharto's fall.

Reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid's government,
effectively paralyzed by a power struggle with parliament in
Jakarta, has little power to stop the destruction and even less
political will to prosecute the timber barons.

Government and independent figures show that around two-thirds
of the 70 million cubic meters of timber produced in Indonesia
annually is illegally felled, costing the country at least $720
million a year in revenues. Around 70 per cent of sawmills are
illegal.

"Indonesia is losing a huge amount of its natural capital, and
that's one of the things that makes this country potentially
great," says Tom Walton, a senior environmental specialist with
The World Bank. "It has abundant natural resources, and they're
being plundered for the benefit of a relatively small number of
people."

Environmentalists predict that commercial forests on Sumatra
will be logged out by 2005, and those on Kalimantan by 2010. The
runaway pace of deforestation has already caused droughts and
floods to farm land across the country, mudslides that bury
entire villages and massive soil erosion.

After foreign donors threatened to withhold crucial aid money
during meetings in Tokyo last October, the government signed an
agreement that included promises to crack down on illegal logging
and prosecute the timber barons.

Their pledges proved to be a complete joke, as not a single
case referred to the attorney-general's office has gone to trial.

A recent visit showed that illegal logging and mining
operations were going on in broad daylight along the main river
flowing through the park's western boundary. Hundreds of
illegally felled trees bound into 100-meter-long log rafts sat
floating in the Sekonyer River waiting to be smuggled out at
night.

The mining has destroyed several miles of rainforest along the
western boundary of Tanjung Puting, leaving contaminated sand
dunes.

"I know this is a national park, but I don't think the
government or police are too concerned," said Dain, a 21-year-old
miner.

As key international donors blasted Indonesia during follow-up
meetings in Jakarta last week, the government launched a furious
damage control operation. The Ministry of Forestry banned the
export of ramin, a rare, valuable wood used to make furniture and
door panels in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Abdurrahman hastily
signed an order to "halt all illegal logging."

But the ruse did not fool donors, who warned that millions of
dollars in aid for the forestry sector would be withheld unless
progress was made in the coming weeks.

The World Bank earlier this month threatened to suspend a
forestry conservation and development project at a national park
in north Sumatra after local police refused to close 111 illegal
saw mills around its perimeter.

But one Western environmentalist complained that donors will
never follow through with threats to halt all economic aid to
Indonesia because they cannot afford to let it collapse, and the
Indonesians know this too well.

"What's the point of waving a stick if you're not going to
whack them?" the environmentalist asks.