Lack of incentives causes failure in timber estate plan
Lack of incentives causes failure in timber estate plan
JAKARTA (JP): Lack of incentives for investors and experience
were the reasons behind Indonesia's failure to reach its
development targets for timber estates, the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) resident representative, Fritz H.
Loebus said.
In a seminar here yesterday, he said that during the first
four years of the recent, Fifth Five Year Development Plan
(Repelita V), Indonesia established only 730,600 hectares of
timber estates -- far less than the 1.5 million hectares targeted
during the period.
Loebus made the statement at the opening of a two-day workshop
on biotechnology research for timber estate development held at
the Research and Development Center for Biotechnology of the
Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) in Cibinong, West Java.
Indonesia, therefore, needs to establish additional 4.4
million hectares of forest plantations between now and the year
2000 to meet the government's target of building a total of 6.2
million hectares for the 15-year period which began in 1984, he
said.
He said that, as of today, Indonesia has established 1.8
million hectares of timber estates.
Loebus said that to reach the goal, highly productive forest
stands, high quality seed and planting materials, as well as
intensive silvicultural practices will be required.
The main objectives of forest plantations are to provide a
stable and long-term supply of raw materials for wood and
woodworking industries, wider employment opportunities and
increased foreign exchange.
Plantation forests play an important role in supplementing
natural forests, which in turn will be important for national
conversion purposes.
"High yield plantations will meet higher wood demand while
maintaining or reducing the area of natural forest being
harvested," Loebus told 50 participants of the workshop
representing research agencies and private companies.
The workshop was aimed at tightening communication with timber
plantation concessionaires and research agencies involved in tree
improvement. It was also to develop better standards in
biotechnology procedures for improved planting stock.
The workshop was opened by the vice chairman of LIPI,
Apriliani Soegiarto, and attended by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco)'s
program specialist in ecological sciences, Natarajan Ishwaran.
The workshop was one of the activities of a project entitled
biotechnology and development of species for industrial timber
estate. UNDP has provided a grant of US$680,000 for the project,
which is also financed with a fund of Rp 488.30 million (around
$225,600) from the government.(als)