On logging moratorium
On logging moratorium
Your recent story Logging ban pleases environmentalists but
upsets pulp industry (The Jakarta Post, July 1) could benefit
greatly from a number of key factual corrections.
For example, World Wild Life Fund executive director Agus
Purnomo appears to be under the false impression that had the
industry developed forest estates long ago rather than relied
heavily on natural forests, the pulp and paper industry would be
unaffected by the logging moratorium today.
The fact is that since its beginning, the Indonesian pulp and
paper industry has worked toward a clear objective of obtaining
100 percent of its fiber from sustainable, well-managed forest
estates. But this objective takes time.
Moreover, Purnomo appears to be unaware that the industry from
its very infancy began developing forest estates. According to
the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the
industry has planted over a million hectares of forest to date.
Arriving at sustainable, productive forest estates is a
process -- not something that is achieved automatically. His
statement also implies forest estates and natural forests exist
forever on separate parcels of land; this, too, is a misleading
fact. The licensed harvesting of degraded natural forests is
required precisely because of the need for sustainable, well-
managed forest estates -- not in spite of that need. More simply
put, you cannot have one without the other.
As to the notion that the industry should have developed
forest estates before it built factories, I can only say that
this would be like trying to run a train before the tracks were
laid: an utterly futile effort. A pulp and paper factory needs a
fiber supply, and a licensed supply that comes from degraded
natural forests -- in the process of developing sustainable
forest estates -- makes use of fiber that would otherwise go to
waste.
Ironically, a logging moratorium is in essence a moratorium on
the development and growth of future sustainable forest estates.
And that should upset both the industry and the
environmentalists.
KAHAR HARYOPUSPITO
Secretary-General
Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association
Jakarta