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