Protecting our rain forests

By the time you finish reading this sentence, approximately five more hectares of tropical forests will have disappeared from the surface of this globe. Or, bringing the comparison closer to home, an area of tropical forest the size of Jakarta disappears from our Earth every 35 hours.

This dire pronouncement is based on 1990 FAO figures which measure the rate of deforestation of the world's diminishing tropical forests.

Tropical forests constitute one of the most fiercely debated environmental issues in the world today. Although it is not fully understood yet, there is a link between tropical forests and the global weather and climate. According to one argument, deforestation in developing countries is estimated to account for up to 20 percent of the greenhouse effect, which traps heat in the atmosphere and causes a slow increase in global temperatures.

Tropical forests are also believed to be the richest of the world's ecosystems, containing uncharted genetic materials deemed vital to human existence. At the same time these forests are known to be very vulnerable to human intrusion. Once a rain forest is cleared, no amount of effort at reforestation will bring back the original ecosystem.

Thus environmentalists around the world, especially in industrialized countries, have strong points to make when they put forth political pressure to preserve the remaining tropical forests. Barriers against importation of tropical timber and wood products in certain countries are cases in point. Arguing that these nations are protectionists rather than environmentalists, or that they only do what they do after they have devastated their own forests, does not address the problem of sustaining the world's fast diminishing tropical forests.

Indonesia has the third largest tropical forest reserves in the world. We are not sure about the exact area still covered by tropical forests in this country. The official figure still stands at around 140 million hectares, and has not been changed for years.

According to a UNDP report released last May, however, Indonesia has only 111.4 million hectares of closed and virgin forests left. It is not very difficult to figure out how fast Indonesia has been cutting down its forests since logging started in this country in the late 1960s.

It is within the above context that one should address the government's plan to reduce Indonesia's timber output by almost 30 percent over the next five years. As announced by the Minister of Forestry, Djamaloedin Soeryohadikoesoemo, the other day, this country's timber output will be reduced from the 31.4 million cubic meters in the past five years to 22.5 million cubic meters in the coming five years.

A similar statement was made by the Director General of Inventory and Forest Land Use, Titus Sarijanto, in a hearing with the House of Representatives a month ago. He said that the government would persistently enforce the cutting cycle of 35 years to allow for natural regeneration.

One could deduce from that statement that the deforestation process in this country has been going on faster than publicly acknowledged. One could even question the validity of the claim that about 79 percent of Indonesia's rain forests are being preserved, as blatantly pronounced almost every night in TV commercials.

The question remains however, whether this time the plan will be executed effectively. For over two decades now we have been fed by claims that this country treats its tropical forests with care, guaranteed by what the government proudly calls the "Indonesian Selective Cutting System". While, in fact, forestry officials themselves have acknowledged that around 80 percent of the estimated 560 forest concessionaires have not fully implemented the system. Early this year for example it was announced that in fiscal year 1992-1993, only 13.6 percent of the forest concession holders in this country fulfilled the government logging rules. And even that figure was mentioned as an "improvement" compared to a year earlier.

The major challenge here seems to be the capacity of the Ministry of Forestry itself to make sure that its policy is adhered to. Its officials are poorly paid like other civil servants, underqualified to inspect the concessions, under- equipped to do their jobs properly, and are highly vulnerable to bribes offered by cash-rich logging firms. Thus it seems that if, indeed, we are serious about mending the situation, the time has come to follow up on the stated intentions with more efficacious actions, challenging as that task may be.