One million hectares of forest to be alloted to cooperatives
One million hectares of forest to be alloted to cooperatives
JAKARTA (JP): The government will allocate at least one
million hectares of the country's forests to cooperatives in
order to give more people an opportunity to manage the country's
forest resources, Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin
Nasution said.
Muslimin said on Friday cooperatives would be given logging
contracts to manage the forest areas.
"The one million hectares of forest allocated to cooperatives
are part of 11 million hectares of forest which have been and
will be taken over by the government from the old
concessionaires," he said.
Muslimin said the government would take over 11 million
hectares of forest concession areas by 2000, mostly from existing
timber companies whose concession rights had expired or were
suspended because of violations.
When timber companies' concession rights expire, the
government can extend the contracts, but the concession areas
will be limited to comply with a decree issued by the Ministry of
Forestry and Plantations late last year.
Under the new decree, each concessionaire will be limited to a
maximum of 100,000 hectares of forest in a province. Although
concessionaires will be allowed to manage forests in other
provinces, the total area under their management cannot exceed
400,000 hectares.
The government will take over the excess forest areas and
auction them off or grant them to cooperatives.
"Of the 11 million hectares, one million hectares will be
granted to local cooperatives, small-scale businesses and
universities, while the remaining 10 million will be offered to
the public through auction," he said.
Muslimin said the forest areas to be granted to each
cooperative and small-scale business would be limited to 10,000
hectares, while those forest areas to be auctioned off would
range between 50,000 and 100,000 hectares.
Logging contracts for areas less than 10,000 hectares will be
given to cooperatives and small-scale firms by provincial
governors as part of the government's effort to give local
administrations greater autonomy in managing the country's forest
assets, he said.
Local cooperatives which apply for logging contracts should
have a recommendation from the governor, he said.
The ministry has set several criteria to determine which
cooperatives are qualified to manage the forest in an
environmentally sustainable manner, he said.
The government is trying to create equal opportunities for
more people to manage forests assets. Aside from granting
concessions to cooperatives, the government also has obliged
timber companies to sell at relaxed terms at least 20 percent of
their shares to cooperatives.
The government first began to award forest concessions to
private companies in 1971 under the Forestry Law, which grants
concession holders the sole right to cultivate and exploit the
forest in their concession areas.
The move led to a concentration of the country's forests in
the hands of a small number of business groups.
As part of the move to give more people the opportunity to
manage the forests, Sulaeman L. Hamzah, head of the Irian Jaya
chapter of the Indonesian Indigenous Businessmen Association,
said the ministry allocated 10,000 hectares of forest in the
province to cooperatives formed by local tribes.
Sulaeman was quoted by Antara news agency as saying that in
the past, the government always ignored the rights of tribal
communities because their region's forests were regarded by the
state as belonging to whoever could raise the capital, labor and
political patronage to exploit them. (gis)