Low appreciation of conservation: The disastrous results

Low appreciation of conservation: The disastrous results

Wiryono, Consultant, Kerinci Seblat, Integrated Conservation
and Development Project, Bengkulu, tnkspm@pdg.vision.net.id

Since the economic crisis hit Indonesia, this country has been
suffering even greater losses in biodiversity. Lowland tropical
forests, where most plants and animals live, have been vanishing
fast. A lack of law enforcement is the biggest factor
contributing to this disaster. When the autonomy era began, the
threats to forests increased even more. Eager to boost local
revenues, local governments often issued forest exploitation
permits regardless of the fact that their production forest was
exhausted. As a result, the neighboring conservation forests
become the target of exploitation.

Having worked for more than two years in a very large project
-- the Kerinci Seblat Integrated Conservation and Development
Project (KS-ICDP) funded by the Global Environmental Facility
(GEF), the World Bank and the Indonesian government -- I am
pessimistic that the government will be able to guard our
invaluable natural heritage. First, the government has not shown
a willingness to enforce laws, not only in illegal logging but
also in many other cases. Only clean governance can save the
forests.

Recently four governors and nine regents whose territory
includes Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP) signed a declaration
to protect it. Regardless of whether the measures are just to
attract donors, timber continues to flow out of the protected
park. If KSNP, which is currently in the international spotlight
and receives millions of dollars cannot stop illegal logging,
there is no reason to believe that other much less funded parks
can do better.

Also, although conservation started during the Dutch colonial
era, the philosophical values and scientific theories underlining
conservation have never been thoroughly and widely discussed and
clarified to conservation workers. This has contributed to their
inability to deal with huge problems.

A most obvious, albeit trivial, indicator of this weakness is
the changes of the name of the directorate general in the
Ministry of Forestry that is responsible for conservation. That
institution has had four names, the last two in four years. Under
the Ministry of Agriculture, conservation was under the
Directorate of Protection and Preservation of Nature (PPA). When
responsibility for forestry came under a ministry of its own in
the early 1980s, the office for conservation became the
Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Preservation
(PHPA). At the end of the 1990s, it changed to the Directorate
General of Protection and Conservation of Nature (PKA). Since
2001 it became the Directorate General of Forest Protection and
Nature Conservation (PHKA).

The changes reflect authorities' muddled understanding of
conservation, leading to confusing laws and regulations --
resulting in turn in confused classification of protected areas.

Act no. 5 1990 on Conservation of Biological Resources and
their ecosystems, for instance, distinguishes the functions of
natural preservation areas and natural reserve areas. But
Government Regulation 68 1998, concerning natural reserve areas
and natural preservation area, states that both have exactly the
three same functions. However according to the Presidential
Decree 32, 1990 on the management of protected areas, national
parks belongs to the Nature and Culture Reserved Area, while in
the Act no 5, national park belong to the category Nature
Preserved Area.

The new law on forestry, Act no 41 1999, separates protection
from conservation -- while the two are the same. The absence of a
philosophical foundation in conservation work can be blamed for
these shortcomings.

In the May edition of the Journal of Environment and History,
Paul Jepson explains that during the Dutch colonial era, the
establishment of several protected areas was driven by ethical
and esthetic values. Ethical values arose from a hunting
tradition. Realizing that excessive hunting could cause wildlife
extinction, North American and European hunters in the 19th
century viewed that human conquest of nature carries with it a
moral responsibility to protect threatened animals -- and
wildlife sanctuaries were established.

Aesthetical values, developed in natural history tradition,
stemmed from fears of destruction of nature. European naturalists
in the 19th century argued that the great aesthetical values of
natural monuments -- tall waterfalls, great mountains, etc --
deserve protection against ruin, just like works of art.

During the New Order, the government established a network on
extensive protected areas, hailed as the most comprehensive in
Asia. During the Third World Congress on National Parks in 1982
in Bali, the government announced 18 candidates for national
parks. Regardless of the motive, the process was clearly a top
down one. People were not involved and the values of protected
areas were not made public. Even forestry people outside the
directorate general have little appreciation of biodiversity.

Now, sidelined for three decades of forest exploitation, local
governments are now eager to salvage what is left in the forest
-- and conservation is in their way. They are not happy that
control of conservation areas is still under Jakarta rule.

The directorate general cannot expect help from foresters in
the district forest offices. Being the most directly responsible
party for the forest destruction during the New Order, they
cannot instantly turn into conservationists.

Nowadays district forestry offices even threaten conservation
areas because they sometimes recommend the regent issue forest
exploitation permits. This is happening in Kerinci. The park
office is being sued by a holder of a forest-exploitation permit,
because the park confiscated his manau (rattan) protected by
official documents. The park office believes that the rattan must
have been acquired illegally from the park because there is no
rattan outside the park.

The Kerinci Seblat National Park is also a good case to show
the failure of conveying conservation values to the public.
Although the national park was opened since 1982, most laymen in
the surrounding four provinces do not know what it is. The term
"national park" is understood as a place for recreation.

The term suggests that the place has national significance in
terms of scenic beauty -- which is not totally wrong. In 1994,
IUCN defined national parks as protected areas managed mainly for
ecosystem protection and recreation. Early national parks in the
U.S. (where the term is coined) are really beautiful and are
outstanding tourist destinations. Most areas of Kerinci Seblat
are "just forest" to many people.

Past practices of promoting the park through posters of rare
tigers, elephants and rhinos, begging for protection, instead led
to the impression that the park was more important to wildlife
than people. Also, the promotion of the park as "the lungs of the
world" has produced the wrong notion that the park is more
important to foreigners than to locals. Local officials have
expressed that the world should pay them for protecting the
"world's lung".

Although the park is now an ASEAN Heritage Site, and was even
nominated as a World Heritage Site, this has not instilled pride
among locals or officials.

It is now the task of the directorate general to organize
scientists, activists, environment-concerned religious leaders,
and conservation workers to start discussing the philosophical
and scientific foundations of conservation. Subsequently, laws
and regulations on conservation must be revised. Categories of
conservation areas must be clearly defined; the 1994
classification of protected areas by IUCN can be adopted.

And unless philosophical and scientific values of conservation
are conveyed to field conservation workers, they will not be able
to share the understanding with the public and local government.