Reforestation campaign plagued by gloomy political landscape

Musthofid and Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia's already grim prospects of forest rehabilitation are likely to diminish altogether due to unfavorable political conditions in the run-up to the 2004 general election, with political parties helping themselves to the country's natural resources to finance their campaigns, a notable environmentalist has said.

"The (political) parties need money for 2004, don't they? They want to win votes in the election. Where do they get the money from? It is from natural resources, isn't it?" former environment minister Emil Salim told The Jakarta Post here on Friday.

Emil was commenting on the inadequate reforestation efforts that are threatening the existence of Indonesia's forests and the country's biodiversity and ecosystem.

Exploitation of forests coupled with the government's inability to impose a proper policy on forest rehabilitation have resulted in the loss of more than 75 percent of the forests over the past few decades, leaving only 60 million hectares today.

Uncontrolled exploitation of forests, compounded by lawlessness and corruption, has resulted in the loss of about two million hectares of forests annually.

The World Bank predicts that if the current rapid pace of deforestation continues, Indonesia is set to grapple with the loss of Sumatra's forests in 2005, with Kalimantan to follow five years later.

"Be realistic. Don't dream. In the lead-up to 2004, it would be difficult to eradicate corruption because everybody is corrupt, be they in the DPR (House of Representatives), in the parties, in judicial courts and elsewhere," he added.

Political parties rely on donations from businesses, including forest concessionaires. In many cases, the parties decide the amount companies must give in return for certain favors.

The deplorable condition of Indonesia's forests is compounded by sluggish reforestation efforts that will likely continue until at least 2004.

In fact, the country's reforestation history has been far from encouraging since the New Order era, with funds often misused or embezzled. One such case involved a crony of former president Soeharto, Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, who is currently serving a six- year jail term after he was convicted for the misappropriation of US$87.08 million in reforestation funds.

Achmad Sjarmidi, another environment expert, raised the alarm over the slow reforestation program, saying that only between 10 percent and 15 percent of damaged forests could be recovered.

"It's ironical. Indonesia has yet to keep its commitment to rebuild its damaged forests," Sjarmidi, who is a lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said.

Wahjudi Wardojo, the secretary-general of the Ministry of Forestry, conceded that the trend in reforestation was gloomy.

"I have to admit we have only been able to rehabilitate a small portion of the vastly damaged forests."

He said that 43 million hectares of Indonesia's forests had been damaged over the past five years. Eleven million hectares of the total area needed immediate rehabilitation.

"Out of the two million hectares targeted (for the 2001 reforestation program), only 34 percent have been realized," he said, citing poor management and plantation technology as the main constraints in the effort.

The percentage accounts for 680,000 hectares from the targeted two million and is far below the 23 million hectares of critically damaged forests reported in 2001.

Wahjudi said inadequate funding had also impeded the reforestation program, but he refused to disclose the amount needed.

Syarmidi said that rampant illegal logging, usually accompanied with irresponsible land clearing, contributed to speedy deforestation, which subsequently endangered the ecosystem.

Reforestation is one of the 12 commitments contained in Indonesia's forest reform campaign it pledged in a series of meetings with the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) in 2000.

However, the government plans to prioritize five areas of the campaign, namely reforestation, illegal logging, forest fires, restructuring of indebted wood-based industries and forest inventory and mapping.