Minister won't hesitate to jail governors

Minister won't hesitate to jail governors

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Forestry M. Prakosa strongly criticized on
Wednesday Kalimantan's governors for their rejection of a 17
percent reduction in the logging quota set by the central
government, warning them of serious legal consequences.

"Their reasons for disregarding the lowered quota are
baseless. We remain firm that we won't revise or annul this
year's logging quota. They should follow the policy or face
criminal prosecution," Prakosa announced to the public on
Wednesday.

He said that the ministry would summon the governors or send
officials to seek an explanation over their defiance and seeming
disregard of the environment.

The ministry will also ask the police and prosecutors to
investigate any violation of the quota policy and to press
charges against all officials who defied it, he said.

Prakosa was infuriated with a joint agreement made by four
governors of Kalimantan to reject the logging quota set by the
central government on the basis that the decreased output would
render thousands of people in their provinces jobless.

The four governors are Suwarna Abdul Fatah of East Kalimantan,
Sjachriel Darham of South Kalimantan, Asmawi A. Gani of Central
Kalimantan and Usman Dja'far of West Kalimantan.

The governors, accompanied by local businessmen, met in
Balikpapan, the capital of East Kalimantan, to endorse the
agreement on Monday.

Suwarna estimated that the quota would result in unemployment
for around 80,000 people currently working in the sector because
companies would have to lower their output capacity to abide by
the policies.

He claimed that he was afraid the additional unemployment
would undermine security by fomenting social unrest in East
Kalimantan, especially around election time.

However, Prakosa doubted Suwarna's unemployment estimates.

He also said the central government considered the short-term
cost negligible compared to the irreplaceable, long-term value of
the tropical forests that the nation still had.

The minister said that if he failed to convince the governors
to abide by the logging quota, and the police or prosecutors also
failed to charge them, the ministry would begin targeting
companies that were now operating in Kalimantan.

"The governors may be able to get away with this, but we have
the authority to revoke the operating licenses of forestry firms
or to ban the exports of their products. It should be enough to
prevent them from violating the quota," said Prakosa.

He added that if the companies stuck with the governors' plan,
the ministry would declare the firms illegal loggers, and they
would all be investigated by the police.

The government has been aggressively trying to restructure the
country's forestry-based sector, which had, for many years,
enjoyed the privileges bestowed on them by the New Order regime
in exploiting the forests all over the archipelago, in order to
gain as much foreign-exchange earnings as possible.

As part of the restructuring policy, the government decided to
gradually lower the country's logging quota of natural forests
for the industry to 6.89 million cubic meters last year and 5.7
million cubic meters this year.

However, despite the central government's laudable efforts to
save the country's forests, the regional governments, empowered
in recent years by greater autonomy, have exploited more of the
forest for their own profit, in some cases even more than the New
Order rush to cut down as many trees as possible.