Preservation of Asia's forests: A global hurdle

Preservation of Asia's forests: A global hurdle

Takeshi Toma, Senior Scientist, t.toma@cgiar.org, Greg Clough,
Communications Specialist Center for International Forestry Research
(CIFOR), Bogor, g.clough@cgiar.org

"Think global, act local" is an oft-heard marketing
catchphrase. But it applies just as well to a recent joint
Japanese-Indonesian initiative to improve sustainable forest
management in Asia.

Governments across Asia face many challenges in their forestry
sectors. These include combating illegal forest activities,
controlling forest fires, and rehabilitating degraded forest
lands. Crucial to solving these problems is greater cooperation
across the region and, ultimately, around the world.

An important step in this direction was the establishment of
the Asia Forest Partnership (AFP) at last year's World Summit on
Sustainable Development. AFP delegates from more than 10
countries are meeting in Yogyakarta this week to examine the
kinds of regional and global actions -- rather than purely
national initiatives -- needed to preserve Indonesia's remaining
tropical rainforests.

This is good news not just for Indonesia but for the world,
which derive enormous benefits from having pristine rainforests
to provide a habitat for rare species and absorb immense amounts
of carbon dioxide, thus slowing down global warming.

Forests help us in so many ways. They keep our water clean and
provide soil nutrients and forage for crops and livestock. They
also help to reduce soil erosion, pollinate plants and provide
protection from the elements.

Forests are the most diverse ecosystems on land, holding the
vast majority of the world's terrestrial species. Indonesia's
forests alone hold 11 percent of the world's plant species, 10
percent of its animal species and 16 percent of its bird species.

But these forests are also an important source of livelihood.
Timber, pulpwood, firewood, fodder, meat, cash crops, fish and
medicinal plants from the forest help sustain hundreds of
millions of the world's rural poor -- many of whom live in Asia.
Yet only a fraction of known animal and plant species have been
examined for potential medicinal, agricultural or industrial
value. Meanwhile the world's forests are falling down around us.

Certainly, considerable work on sustainable forest management
is underway in Asia. Governments, international organizations,
non governmental organizations, industry and other stakeholders
are now making major contributions. Yet serious obstacles
continue to hamper efforts by governments, business and civil
society in Asia to achieve sustainable management and
conservation of forests. As a result the extent and quality of
forests continue to decline, opportunities for poverty
alleviation are lost, and economic growth is slowed down.

One of the biggest obstacles has been the poor flow of
information between stakeholders. All too often forestry
departments, NGOs and donors implement worthwhile projects but
fail to share their findings with each other. Efforts to improve
communications and information sharing will need to be looked at
very closely by AFP delegates this week in Yogyakarta. This is
the single most important action of any cooperative effort to
overcome trans-national problems.

The Ministry of Forestry has undertaken a number of positive
steps to combat some of the problems faced in the forest sector.
It is trying to reduce the over capacity in the timber industry
that puts so much pressure on forests and encourages illegal
logging. It is implementing social forestry measures to allow
local communities greater say in how their forests are managed.
And it has banned the export of logs.

But the causes of many of the problems in the forest sector
often take place beyond the reach of the government. This is why
multilateral initiatives like AFP are so important, as are
bilateral initiatives such as the recent joint announcement by
Indonesia and Japan to fight the entry of illegal logs from
Indonesia. Similar agreements have also been signed with the
United Kingdom and China.

China imports some 27 percent of Indonesia's timber output,
with Japan importing 22 percent and the U.S. 9 percent. Where
there is demand there will always be supply -- legal or
otherwise. In Indonesia's case, it is estimated more than three
times the government's allowable cut per year is exported to
other countries.

It may seem unfair to blame the importing countries. After
all, how are they to know if the timber they buy is legal or not?
Sorry, in this age of digital technology, databases and spy-in-
the-sky handycams, that argument just doesn't wash. It is the
responsibility of the importers, especially those in the
developed world, to make it their business to know where their
timber comes from. Just as it is the responsibility of consumers
in developed countries to be more environmentally aware in their
shopping purchases.

Inter-government measures such as AFP will help this process
in a number of ways. These include developing systems for
verifying Indonesian timber products imported into Japan. Such
measures might involve monitoring forest harvesting through
satellite imagery and implementing timber tracking systems and
timber product certification schemes. And to ensure consumers are
more enlightened, AFP will work with both industry and NGOs to
promote public awareness programs.

At the hometown end of the global-local spectrum, governments
themselves will have to work closely with their own
constituencies. They will need to encourage greater involvement
of civil society in monitoring efforts to curb illegal practices.
They will particularly need to improve forest law enforcement.

It would be naive to think measures such as these are going to
solve Indonesia's forest problems overnight. And it would be
arrogant to suggest other countries can do the job for Indonesia.
The key word is "partnership".

With AFP's 14 government partners from around the world and
the close involvement of organizations like the Bogor-based
Center for International Forestry Research and The Nature
Conservancy in the U.S., we are finally seeing forest problems
tackled from both sides of the equation -- from the point of
demand and from the source of supply.

But national, regional and international concerns are not
focused only on the trade in illegally cut timber and other
forest products. Governments and NGOs are concerned about a range
of forest issues. These include the spread of fire in previously
fire resistant areas, the invasion of exotic pests that impede
natural regeneration, the use of harmful logging practices, and
the need to restore degraded lands to productivity and
conservation value.

Overcoming these problems is going to require an enormous
cooperative effort. Governments will need to work together in
sharing satellite information on fires, sharing skills in
implementing reduced impact logging strategies, and learning from
each other about how to best restore degraded lands and manage
secondary forests.

Although it is only early days yet, multilateral and bilateral
approaches to help deal with the Indonesia's forest problems may
well become a model for dealing with forests problems elsewhere,
such as in the Thailand and the Philippines. It is too much to
expect developing countries to solve these problems on their own,
especially when developed nations are often complicit in causing
the problems in the first place. Thinking globally, acting
locally may just be the solution.