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.