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)