Indonesia project to meet pulp demand moving slowly
Indonesia project to meet pulp demand moving slowly
Prime Gracia Sarmiento, Dow Jones/Singapore
The Indonesian government's plan to accelerate the development of industrial tree plantations can help meet the rising demand for pulp and paper if the program is undertaken in a time-bound manner and without encroaching on existing rain forest areas.
However, the slow progress of the program so far is raising concerns that the ongoing depletion of forest resources may continue as the country's large paper mills struggle to find raw materials to meet rising demand for paper.
Deny Kustiawan, director for the Indonesian Ministry's forest development, said the ministry has already awarded concession rights to 114 companies to manage 5.8 million hectares of mostly degraded land as industrial tree plantations.
"But only 2.16 million hectares have been planted (so far). We need to speed up development of existing industrial forests, so that it can (meet) domestic demand for wood," he said.
According to Togu Manurung, a forestry expert at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, industrial plantations can boost the supply of raw materials needed by the growing pulp and paper industry in Indonesia.
But development of these plantations can also pose a "threat to natural forests if it isn't done correctly." If such plantations are developed in productive natural forest areas, it will harm the country's forestry resources, Manurung said.
The need to service the growing demand for raw materials to make pulp comes at a time when Indonesia is grappling with massive deforestation.
Indonesia is among the world's biggest producers and exporters of paper and hardwood pulp, thanks to its abundant forestry resources.
In 1993, Indonesia produced 900,000 metric tons of pulp and 2.6 million tons of paper and paperboard. In 2004, Indonesia's pulp output reached 5 million tons, while paper and paperboard production soared to over 7 million tons, according to statistics issued by the Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association, or APKI.
But this growth has come, at least partly, at the expense of the country's natural resources.
The World Wildlife Fund reported in 2003 that the tropical lowland forests in Sumatra "which harbor the world's highest levels of plant diversity and beleaguered elephants and tigers, are disappearing rapidly" because of massive destruction of forests for various raw materials.
The government is using "a high conservation value system to map (existing) forest areas," and ensure that industrial plantations aren't developed in protected natural forest areas, Kustiawan said.
In 2003 and 2004, Indonesia's ministry of forestry issued rules stipulating only a portion of the country's forest area can be used for industrial tree plantations. The concessions to develop such plantations are issued by the government through an auction.
The government's program on industrial tree plantations allows Indonesian pulp and paper companies to "complete their industrial plantation development according to their needs, in order to achieve full sustainability," said Aida Greenbury, general manager for sustainability and stakeholder engagement at Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd.
The Jakarta-based APP is one of the world's biggest pulp and paper companies and owns a fully integrated pulp and paper mill in Sumatra.
APKI Chairman Muhammad Mansur said the local pulp and paper companies need these plantations, without which the industry "will stagnate and will start importing pulp and paper again because we can't expand our capacity."
But environmental and forestry experts are skeptical.
Manurung doubts the government can speed up the plantation program without providing incentives for private investors.
Chris Lang, a Frankfurt-based researcher and campaigner with the World Rainforest Movement goes a step further. The problem isn't about looking for sustainable fiber sources for the pulp and paper industry, he said.
It is "the pulp and paper industry itself which is the problem," he said, adding even industrial plantations consume vast amounts of water and displace local communities who rely on natural forests for their livelihood.
According to a paper by the Berlin-based environmental group Robin Wood, "legal logging inside concession areas has the same devastating effect as illegal logging - valuable ecosystems are either overused or completely destroyed for conversion to plantations."
APP in particular, has been criticized by both local and international environmental groups for its role in destroying natural rainforests in Sumatra.
But APP's Greenbury, who's also a wood technologist by profession, said APP "sustainably develops and manages its area, working closely with the local community and steering them away from illegal logging and traditional slash and burn practices."
APP "only develops wasteland and degraded areas," she said.