Indonesia: A Country of Vanishing Forest?
Edith Hartanto The Jakarta Post Jakarta
In the past decade, Indonesia has witnessed the major destruction of forests in all its provinces, from the western tip of Aceh, to the eastern end of Irian Jaya.
This year is no different. We can vividly see the severe damage found in designated conservation areas such as national parks and protected forests.
According to World Bank predictions, Kalimantan's forests are likely to disappear in nine years, while Sumatra's lowland forests will last only for another four years.
Natural disasters, such as flooding and landslides in Nias Island, Bengkulu, many parts of Java along with other parts of Sumatra, are glaring examples of how deforestation can inflict tremendous damage in terms of lives lost, and local economies shattered.
The World Bank also describes Indonesia as losing, on average, some 1.5 million hectares of forests each year between 1985 and 1997. By the beginning of 2000, Indonesia's forests had been reduced to a mere 20 million hectares, down from pre-1985 levels of nearly 43 million hectares.
There is mounting concern over this increasingly rapid forest destruction in Indonesia, and with good reason.
Nearly 60 million people in this country are heavily dependent on forest resources, including water.
Based on this fact, World Bank statistics indicate that deforestation over the past ten years had reached between 1.7 and 2 million hectares annually.
Unchecked illegal logging and a lack of reforestation programs were previously blamed for the quickly eroding forests throughout the archipelago.
But it seems nothing much is being done to prevent all this, as the massive looting of wood is taking place every day.
The World Bank's Country Director for Indonesia, Mark Baird, disclosed during an East-Asia Ministerial Conference on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance in Bali in September that illegal logging inflicted a staggering US$600 million per year in losses to the government of Indonesia.
The figure was more than twice what the government claimed to have spent on its subsidized food program for the poor in 2001.
Government officials are constantly being blamed for the decrease, along with farmers who employ slash-and-burn techniques in addition to a large group of illegal loggers.
Poor enforcement of regulations already filled with loopholes and lack of political will are also among the major obstacles in handling deforestation.
Non-governmental organizations point their finger primarily at companies engaged in illegal logging, concession holders and their collusion with government officials on the problem.
Longgena Ginting of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) stressed in an East-Asia conference on Forestry in September that traditional communities and indigenous people's rights were among Walhi's top priorities in its efforts to conserve Indonesia's endangered tropical forests.
According to Walhi, up until now, Indonesia has lost 72 percent of its natural forest. Walhi put a higher deforestation rate, which has reached 2.4 million hectares per year.
Illegal logging activities have robbed 56.6 million cubic meters of trees from our forests each year, not to mention the ten million hectares lost due to the forest fire of 1997/1998.
Walhi further estimates that the demand of the timber industry for forest products, both domestically and for export, stands at about 100 million cubic meters, of which 21.9 million cubic meters come from imports.
The remaining 78.1 million cubic meters must therefore come from primary forests while, in fact, the natural forest regeneration process has only a very low level of success.
Representatives of the European Union (EU) at the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) have blasted Jakarta's poor capability of enforcing sustainable forest management during its recent meeting with Indonesian government officials in November, 2001.
The EU, in a statement read during the meeting, said the Indonesian government had little on-the-ground evidence of success in resolving the country's forestry crisis.
Despite the criticism, donor countries grouped in the forum agreed to provide US$3.14 billion in loans to help the country's cash-strapped budget.
Under pressure and fast losing its precious forests, often known as the "lungs of the earth," due to unchecked logging, Indonesia is tightening the rules on forest exploitation.
As of 2003, all forest concession holders are required to obtain government-approved sustainable forest management certification or lose their licenses.
The government will soon be working on legislation to be completed by the end of 2002, Minister of Forestry Mohamad Prakosa said early in December after meeting with President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Some activities have been carried out by the Ministry of Forestry.
However, high priority action plans such as those related to illegal logging, restructuring of the timber industry, and reform of forest management systems in line with decentralization in regional autonomy era -- which needs inter-departmental coordination -- have not resulted in significant progress.
According to Dr. Hariadi Kartodihardjo, a deputy for environmental degradation control at the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal), Indonesia's complex management of forest degradation is caused by structural problems: the gap in allocation of the rights to utilize forest resources, conflicting claims, and conflicts of interest among bureaucrats, including law enforcers.
All these make people pay less attention to sustaining the forest.
Private parties are able to afford the extra, high costs entailed because they have the opportunity to gain from illegal logging, or overexploitation, as compensation and upholding the law becomes difficult.
One major problem in our transition towards decentralization lies in the weak communications between the central government and local administrations, especially in the implementation of forestry policy.
Army members and bureaucrats have reputations for being involved in illegal logging activities, which at times benefit local communities seeking to regain some of their resources.
In line with regional autonomy legislation, the Ministry of Forestry under then-minister Nurmahmudi Ismail earlier in January of this year has relinquished some of its authority regarding the authorization of new forest concession permits, to provincial administrations.
According to a ministerial decree dated Nov. 6, 2000, the provincial administration is permitted to issue a forest concession permit covering an area of up to 100,000 hectares.
In addition, the regency government is allowed to issue a forest concession permit for an area of up to 50,000 hectares.
The new freedom of each region to implement its own policy on development may have lately added to the pace of forest erosion as some areas with limited economic resources have tended to make use of their forests as the main source of locally-generated income.
It is reported that in East Kalimantan, by only paying Rp 200 million, one can easily secure a concession from the forestry ministry for the right to manage a 100-hectare forest plot. And in Jember, East Java, the local administration has issued gold- mining concessions for the Metu Betiri National Park.
Experience in the last two years has shown that the forest reforms agenda that could be carried out were only those agreed through intensive communication among the central and local government as well as other stakeholdres, followed by bureaucracy reform and strengthening.
Respecting and maintaining the forest rights of indigenous people is one effective way that can save the forest.
Unless the government and the timber industry sincerely respect the rights of traditional communities and indigenous people, the forest conservation effort is likely to fail.
These traditional communities and indigenous people possess the knowledge, which we lack, on how to be friends with the forest and how to utilize it effectively without damaging it.
Another extreme but tough solution to deforestation is the implementation of a moratorium, resulting in the halting of all industrial-scale logging activities for a certain period.
The moratorium would give the government all the time it needs to rehabilitate the forest, restructure the timber industry and trade and empower local traditional communities.
But unless the government acts quickly and strongly against illegal logging and other deforestation activities, along with putting a moratorium into action, Indonesia will lose all of its forests in the next 15 years.