Logging companies ready to share revenues with locals

Logging companies ready to share revenues with locals

JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Indonesian Forest
Concessionaires (APHI) supported on Friday the government's call
to give part of their revenues to locals as a solution to end
growing conflicts over land ownership.

APHI chairman Adiwarsita Adinegoro said, however, the revenue-
sharing arrangement should be stipulated in a government
regulation so that all timber companies would have clear
guidelines to carry out the program.

"A clear regulation is important to avoid similar conflicts
from reoccurring in the future," he told The Jakarta Post.

Adiwarsita said logging companies would likely agree to
contribute some part of their revenues to local communities as
long as the amount was reasonable, and the procedures in the fund
allocations were clearly defined.

He was commenting on a statement made earlier this week by
Minister of Forestry and Plantation Nur Mahmudi Ismail, who
called on logging firms to distribute some part of their revenues
from timber sales to local communities in order to resolve the
recently escalating conflicts between the two parties.

The ministry's secretary-general, Soeripto, said on Friday the
minister's suggestion would be discussed with the troubled
logging firms in the next couple of days.

At least 50 timber companies, which control about 10 million
hectares of forests in Irian Jaya, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, are
currently involved in heated conflicts with local residents, who
claim ownership of the firms' concessions, according to APHI's
report.

The association said that the 50 firms had to stop their
logging activities because the locals had threatened their
workers.

Meanwhile, some 77 loggers in East Kalimantan have also
threatened to stop their operations, saying that residents in
Kutai and Bulungan districts have seized some of their heavy
equipment and demanded compensation amounting to billions of
rupiah.

According to Adiwarsita, some of the 50 logging firms had
entered negotiations with local communities to end their
conflicts.

"I heard about 20 firms, some of which are operating in
Kalimantan, are near to concluding the negotiations. Some of them
have offered to help the locals to develop infrastructures such
as irrigation," he said.

Soeripto said the active involvement of logging firms in the
development process in local areas was also a good alternative
solution to the conflict.

"By participating in the development of local areas, logging
firms can reduce the social gap. It is the social gap, social
jealousy that makes locals angry and expropriates the companies's
concession areas," he told the Post.

He said many local communities had bottled up their anger and
jealousy of the logging firms, which they claimed had seized
their ancestoral properties without proper compensation.

Soeripto acknowledged that the conflict between local
residents and logging firms was partly the result of wrong
policies in forestry management made by the government in the
past, which had mostly benefited the logging companies.

According to official data, more than 80 percent of the
country's forests are controlled by the family and close friends
of former president Soeharto.

Although many parts of their concessions overlap with local
residents' farmland, they often allegedly seized the areas
without giving any compensation. Residents were unable to do
anything but accept their presence due to threats from security
guards at the companies.

With the downfall of Soeharto in mid-1998 and the rise of a
more democratic government, people have begun to feel more
courageous about expressing their opinions and voicing their
demands, albeit at the risk of violence.

For example, villagers of Rambang Lubai in the Muara Enim
regency of South Sumatra have recently demanded that PT Musi
Hutan Persada, an industrial estate developer partly owned by
Soeharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardijanti Rukmana and timber
magnate Prajogo Pangestu, return their land and pay Rp 301
billion in compensation for losses which occurred due to their
inability to produce any crops since the company took over their
land without proper restitution in 1991. (cst)