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.