Indonesia's biodiversity will be gone in 30 years

Harry Surjadi, Journalist, Jakarta, hsurjadi@yahoo.com

Indonesia is not only a multiethnic nation with more than 3,000 languages and diversified cultures, but it is also rich in biological diversity. Indonesia vies with Brazil for the title of the richest country on Earth in terms of biological diversity.

The abundant natural resources, however, are now in danger and may become extinct soon if there is no concerted efforts to stop irresponsible exploitation of nature.

Indonesia has 515 species of mammals (second on the world mammal list behind Brazil), 39 percent of them endemic; 511 species of reptiles (the fourth in diversity), 150 of them endemic; 1,531 species of birds (the fifth), 397 of them endemic; and 270 amphibian species (the sixth), 100 of them endemic; 75 species of psittacine birds (the first), with 38 of them endemic; and 35 species of primates (the fourth).

This country is also in the top five on plant diversity with an estimated 38,000 higher plant species; heads the world list in palm diversity with 477 species, 225 of them endemic; and has over half of the 350 species of dipterocarp trees, with 155 being endemic in Kalimantan. Indonesia also ranks behind only Brazil and possibly Columbia in freshwater fish diversity, about 1,400 species. Some species were discovered only in the 20th century.

Sir Stamford Raffles, well-known English naturalist, in 1821 described the world's largest species of gibbon Symphalangus syndactylus of Sumatra, locally called siamang. Almost a century later, zoologist CB Kloss discovered what seemed to be a dwarf siamang in the Mentawai islands off Sumatra's west coast.

In the lowland forest of Sulawesi lives the Anoa depressicornis, a small Southeast Asian buffalo with a shoulder height of little more than three feet, dark-coated and white legged.

Another new species of Sulawesi was a giant tree nymph. It was discovered by a team of Anthony Bedford Russell, an entomological expert during Operation Drake expedition to southern Sulawesi. The new species, named Idea tambusisiana, has a massive wingspan of 6.5 inches.

On March 24, 1911 avian expert Erwin Stresemann collected an adult female of a quite exquisite species of crested starling at Bubunan on the northern coast of Bali. Except for the black edge to its tail and its black wing tips, its plumage was pure white. In contrast, its unfeathered legs and feet were pale gray, its bill brownish-yellow, and a conspicuous patch of bright blue skin encircled each eye. In 1912, Stresemann officially described and named it Leucospar rothschildi.

The Bali mynah is endemic, and only inhabits the western part of Bali.

In 1989, French biologist Frangois-Xavier Pelletier found a river dolphin similar to Orecaella brevirostris, the Irrawaddy river dolphin. This slender-bodied, blunt-headed cetacean is smaller than the Irrawaddy river dolphin. After Pelletier examined it more closely, the pesut (the local name) is instantly distinguished from O. brevirostris because the pesut was toothless, while O. brevirostris has about 70 teeth.

Another striking discovery was the Komodo dragon and the coelacanth fish. In 1912, scientist Ouwens published a scientific description of the new giant lizard found on Komodo island, East Nusa Tenggara, which he named Varanus komodoensis. Because of its huge size (averages more than 10 feet long) and impressive appearance, coupled with the fire-spurting illusion created by its long bright-yellow tongue's flickering, flame-like movements, the lizard has the common name Komodo dragon.

In September 1997, a marine expert from the University of California at Berkeley, Mark Erdman, incidentally saw a strange fish sold at a fish market in Manado, North Sulawesi. He recognized it as the very rare coelacanth fish. Then he interviewed 200 fishermen and found that only four fishermen had ever caught that kind of fish.

On July 30, 1998 a fisherman, Lameh Sonathan, caught a 1.24 meter, 29 kilogram live coelacanth in Manado Tua waters (north of Manado). According to a DNA test done by Intitut de Recherche pour le Development, France, a coelacanth specimen found at Manado Tua was not the same species that was found at Chalumna River or Komoro island. So it was named Latimeria menadoensis.

Scientists believe that many creatures have not been identified or named yet in Indonesia. Some of them, perhaps, have already become extinct. If Indonesia's tropical forests are lost, the habitats of many already endangered species (some endemic species) will be lost forever. And the loss will be irreversible.

The World Bank estimates that in 2005 the lowland forest in Sumatra will be gone and the lowland forest in Kalimantan will be gone in 2010. Forest Watch Indonesia, a forum of 20 NGOs committed to investigating the status of Indonesian forests, in 2002 reported that since 1996 the deforestation rate was around two million hectares per year. In 1980, the deforestation rate was estimated at around one million hectares per year, in the 1990s the deforestation rate was 1.7 million per year. And the rate is increasing year by year.

There are two main problems threatening the sustainability of Indonesia's tropical forests. First is the quality of the remaining forest area and the prospects of obtaining a sustainable supply of timber from this resource into the future. The second, which is linked to the first, is the demand for logs which greatly exceeds the official supply.

The big demand for logs or raw wood fuels widespread illegal felling in order to meet the shortfall in raw materials for the wood processing industry. The excess was 35-40 million cubic meters per year. And around 65 percent of the wood supply came from illegal logging.

Japan is the biggest market of Indonesian wood products. The diminishing Indonesian forests will have an impact on countries like Japan, and on the world.

According to an Asian Least-cost Greenhouse gas Abatement Strategy (ALGAS) study on Indonesian greenhouse gases inventory in 1994, forestry and land-use change accounted for 74 percent of greenhouse gases. Forestry and land-use change contributed to most CO2 emissions. If Japan continues to consume hardwood products from Indonesia, Indonesia will cut down more of its forests and Indonesia will emit more greenhouse gases.

In Indonesia, the forest is mainly viewed as an extractable resource of timber only. Forests are not valued as resources of biological diversity, sources of medicinal plants and food resources.

Now, legally or illegally, many biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies from developed countries are searching for active substances extracted from tropical plants. One of the companies is the Japanese company Shiseido. Since 1995, Shiseido had filed 51 patents for medicinal plants traditionally found in Indonesia.

Following public outcry, in March this year, PT Dian Tarunaguna, a sister company of Shiseido in Indonesia, said in a media release that Shiseido had withdrawn its patent requests. If hardwood consumers in developed countries continue buying hardwood products from Indonesia, logging activities will not stop. When the forest disappears, so too will Indonesia's rich biological diversity be effected and disappear forever.