Need to link commitments on forestry

Need to link commitments on forestry

By Hariadi Kartodihardjo

BOGOR (JP): Since the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank included forest policy reform in the Letter of Intent
in 1998, and since the Consultative Group for Indonesia (CGI)
used the issue as a condition for debt relief, international
institutions have continued efforts to improve forestry
performance.

The international conference on "Forestry Law Enforcement and
Governance" from Sept. 11-13 in Bali will be closed by a
ministerial statement expressing the political commitment of nine
Asian countries for action at the country and regional level.

The Inter-Departmental Committee on Forestry (IDCF) was set up
following CGI pressure last year in Jakarta. Although the
committee has already arrived at a comprehensive framework and
action plans to control forest degradation, the agenda has yet to
be implemented.

Some activities have been carried out by the Ministry of
Forestry; however high priority action plans such as those
related to illegal logging, restructuring of the timber industry,
and reform of forest management systems in line with
decentralization -- which needs inter-departmental coordination
-- have not resulted in significant progress.

Indonesia's complex management of forest degradation is caused
by structural problems: the gap in allocation of the rights to
utilize forest resources, conflicting claims, and conflicts of
interest among bureaucrats, including law enforcers. All these
make people pay less attention to sustaining the forest.

Private parties are able to afford the extra, high costs
entailed because they have the opportunity to gain from illegal
logging or overcutting as compensation, and upholding the law
becomes difficult.

Small success stories on forest degradation control are due to
the presence of people capable of reforming the role of
bureaucracy and at the same time win over the support of the
local community. Improvements are needed for an open and credible
bureaucracy, which enables the making of decisions together with
the community.

The key is in the commitment of the local government leaders,
especially the heads of regencies.

One major problem in our transition towards decentralization
lies in the weak communications between central government and
local administrations, especially in the implementation of
forestry policy. Army members and bureaucrats have been known to
be involved in illegal logging activities, which at times benefit
local communities seeking to regain some of their resources.

With diverse perceptions and priorities among stakeholders, an
approach stressing instructions from the center -- such as the
issuance of a presidential decree or instruction -- would not
receive support or produce a positive result. The weak
implementation of the presidential instruction and Ministry of
Forestry decree on the moratorium of ramin (Gonystillus bancanus)
cutting and trading is a clear example.

Transaction costs for legal logging businesses are very high
compared with the costs and risks of illegal ones. A research in
1998 showed that to secure their various necessary permits for
many activities, private companies had to spend around 26 to 48
percent of their variable costs.

A preliminary result from this year's study by the Ministry of
Industry and Trade together with Sucofindo shows that transaction
costs amount to Rp 203,000 per cubic meter. The costs included
"supporting costs" for guidance and control of forest concessions
by the government which reached Rp 900 million per year for a
forest concession with an annual log production of 45,000 cubic
meters.

A crucial issue is how the international agenda and national
commitment can be linked to the commitment of local government,
and how the bureaucracy can be reformed.

The failure of last year's multi-sector agenda under the
Interepartmental Committee on Forestry and other previous
international programs were due to the absence of intensive
communication to link those international commitments with
national, as well as local, concerns.

Governance and bureaucracy problems are the most important
causes of forest degradation. International initiatives cannot be
more than a trigger to further work in this area. Experience in
the last two years has shown that the forest reform agendas that
could be carried out were only those agreed through intensive
communication among the central and local government as well as
other stakeholders, followed by bureaucracy reform and
strengthening.

Any one agenda could be better than any other, but it would be
futile without sufficient commitment and institutional
capability.

Dr. Hariadi Kartodihardjo is deputy for environmental degradation
control at the Environment Impact Management Agency/Bapedal and a
lecturer at the Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural
Institute.