No action over vanishing forests

Wiryono, School of Forestry, University of Bengkulu

Indonesian forests are disappearing fast. Within less than a decade, our lowland forest will no longer exist. Some of the forests will make way for plantations, but most will probably become only degraded woodland and scrub. Apart from the loss of biological diversity, Indonesia will eventually have to import timber to meet its increasing needs.

Everybody will have to pay the price. Severe droughts and floods may occur more frequently, and the price of wood will drastically increase. If our source of gasoline, kerosene and diesel became depleted, people would rush out to stockpile it.

But do we worry? For most people, forests are not part of their daily life. We haven't seemed to feel the impact of deforestation. Although areas of production forest have decreased considerably, timber is still available due to illegal logging. The price is still within our reach. Many do not know that the timber we buy most likely comes from illegal logging. Even if we know, we may not care, not to mention caring about the loss of biodiversity.

Foresters have seen the destruction with their own eyes. We have felt its economic impact and seen the collapse of forest concession companies. As foresters, we must also feel guilty as we are the most responsible party to blame for this destruction.

But why don't foresters feel sad, guilty and worry? Simple: We did not plant the forest. Most of our forests are naturally grown. We did not spend our energy, time and money to plant, irrigate, fertilize and protect them from diseases and pests. Farmers would be very sad when a few hectares of their plantation were destroyed by fire. Every year forest fires occur and the total affected areas reach millions of hectares, yet we, the foresters, do not sincerely feel sad, let alone guilty!

What we have done is only cut the trees down. Actually our forests will naturally recover after harvesting if we follow the sustained yield principle. This principle has been practiced for hundreds of years ago by European foresters. Every student of forestry knows this principle well. But we don't follow this principle due to our greed. Of course we have tried to create forest plantations, but the size is much too small compared to the gigantic destruction we have done.

A few years from now our natural production forest will be gone. Some of the protected forests may survive and small size forest plantations may exist. But timber production, legally and illegally will certainly drop. As timber becomes rare or has to be imported, the price will soar. Only then will we be regretful, and rush to plant trees and take care of them. But it will be too late. It takes many years to produce timber. And it is impossible to bring back the creatures that have become extinct.

We cannot afford this disaster. We must start acting now. Plant trees and let them grow. It does not take sophisticated technology or high-level sciences to grow forests. The failure of our plantation project is not due to a lack of science and technology, but a lack of ethics. Large parts of project funds is corrupted instead of being used for planting and tending the seedlings.

The first thing to do, therefore, is to eliminate corruption in the forestry sector. We would be able to save what is left of the natural forests and create considerable forest plantations -- or we could lose our forests and be headed for disaster.

The author has a PhD in ecology.