Peat forests facing extinction from crisis-hit profiteers

Peat forests facing extinction from crisis-hit profiteers

By Jack Rieley

PALANGKARAYA, Central Kalimantan (JP): We are witnessing the
demise in Southeast Asia of one of the last wilderness ecosystems
on this planet -- tropical peat swamp forest. This waterlogged,
inhospitable and barely penetrable landscape used to occupy about
50 million hectares throughout the perhumid tropics but because
of human impact it has reached the brink of extinction. The human
impact came in the form of government promoted land development
schemes, illegal logging and land settlement.

In Indonesia over the last 20 years, the ecosystem has been
reduced from almost 30 million hectares (twice the land surface
of the United Kingdom) to only about 15 million hectares, and
most of what remains has already been logged selectively.
Indonesia and Malaysia, which between them contain 75 percent of
the world's resources of tropical peatland, are replacing this
rain forest ecosystem with oil palm and food crops such as corn,
rice and soybeans.

Tropical peat swamp forest is a sensitive and vulnerable
ecosystem that performs many functions important to mankind,
locally, regionally and globally. Indigenous people have depended
on the resources of these swamp forests for thousands of years
for construction materials, food and medicines. The vast peatland
landscape retain, store and supply water while, at the same time,
reducing flooding and soil erosion downstream. As part of the
global peatland resource, they are one of the largest carbon
sinks and stores on this planet.

In addition, Indonesia's peat swamp forests in both Kalimantan
and Sumatra are the last refuges for orangutan. In recent years,
these near relatives of man have retreated to the peat swamp
forests as other dry land habitats have disappeared following
human settlement and conversion to agriculture. In addition to
the great ape, the forests are also home to many thousands of
species of other animals and hundreds of plants. The potential
benefit of the latter to man has not yet been assessed.

Ecosystem destruction and species extinction are being
propelled by economic factors generated by increasing population
numbers in tropical countries and greater social and economic
expectations of their inhabitants. These forces are especially
powerful in Indonesia, a country of more than 200 million people,
almost 50 percent of whom live at or below subsistence level.

The recent economic collapse in Asia had drastic effects for
the country as its currency went into free-fall and millions of
workers lost their jobs. The cost of living, for those with
money, has risen dramatically and inflation is running at around
50 percent per annum.

Under these circumstances, more and more people are turning to
the country's last remaining natural resources, the forests, to
scrape a meager living. The authorities appear powerless to stop
this uncontrolled rape of the country or choose to turn a blind
eye to it for one reason or another.

The drain on natural forest resources will have serious
economic consequences for the future sustainability of the
country's forests and therefore its forest industry and
downstream manufacturing of timber based products.

The effect in Central Kalimantan, which has some of the
largest remaining areas of pristine peat swamp forest, has
already been dramatic. On July 1, 1998, an embargo was imposed by
the forestry ministry on clear felling within the one-million-
hectare mega-rice project area (PLG), pending its reevaluation
coupled with the cessation of legitimate logging by
concessionaires operating in peat swamp forest, following expiry
of the 20-year license period. This led to a major increase in
illegal timber extraction in order to feed the ever-hungry
sawmills, plywood factories and pulp mills that line the main
rivers of this province.

As a result of the economic depression, high unemployment and
the inability of transmigrant farmers to obtain a living from the
land upon which they were settled, local people are turning to
the forest in order to obtain a meager income, even in the
pristine forest that should not be touched.

There appears to be a conspiracy of collusion in Central
Kalimantan to extract all of the commercially salable timber as
quickly as possible. Monitoring and control systems of the
Ministry of Forestry are not being implemented and officials are
turning a blind eye to what is happening.

Similarly, the police and military are doing nothing to stop
this rape of the forest. The scale of this operation is so large,
with groups of up to 200 men living inside small sections of the
forest, felling trees, especially ramin (Gonystylus bancanus) and
meranti (Shorea spp.) that the forest may never recover.

Ramin is a very sought after tree that commands a high price,
but the illegal extractors are taking out mostly undersize trees
(less than 30 cm in diameter) that would have been the source of
regrowth for future legitimate, commercial timber operations.

It is high time that international environmental NGOs and
governments put pressure on the Indonesian government to put its
house in order to stop this officially tolerated, illegal
activity that is destroying both biodiversity and the future of
the logging industry.

The present situation also makes complete nonsense of the
principles of "wise use" of tropical peatlands and is undermining
the sustainability of this natural resource for future
generations of Indonesians.

The Ministry of Forestry is receiving large amounts of aid
from many countries (including the United Kingdom, European
Union, Japan and Germany) to promote studies and implementation
of better techniques of forest management for sustainable
forestry. These expensive projects are meaningless without
effective monitoring and control in the forests themselves.

Indonesia is putting an outward face to the world of effective
and sustainable forest management when the truth is quite the
reverse. These double standards should be exposed.

There is an air of corruption reaching from the lowest
official in the provinces to the highest reaches in the Ministry
of Forestry in Jakarta, that is providing business interests with
the freedom to pillage the remaining forests in Central
Kalimantan and elsewhere in Indonesia.

Behind the small fry loggers living inside the forests and
felling the trees, there is an efficient network of
intermediaries organizing the collection of logs, their
transportation down rivers and selling them on to the end users
who may be involved in the normal legal activities of timber
processing and supply.

This entire illegal system, that is presumably based upon
bribes and threats, must be stopped! It has often been said that
the richest government employees in Indonesia are those working
for the Ministry of Forestry. How far this statement is true is
immaterial but the fact that it is expressed at all is, in
itself, cause for great concern.

The Minister of Forestry must address this problem now and act
to stop this uncontrolled rape of Indonesia's peat swamp forests
before it is too late. Indonesia must be seen to adhere to its
international treaty obligations for maintaining biodiversity and
promoting sustainability of its natural resources and not just
pay lip service to them. The death of the globally unique peat
swamp forest ecosystem must be prevented.

Dr. Jack Rieley is director of the Kalimantan Tropical Peat
Swamp Forest Research Project and Center for International
Cooperation in Management of Tropical Peatland, University of
Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan.