RI receives $42 million grant for forestry

RI receives $42 million grant for forestry

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Forestry yesterday received a 33
million ECU (US$42.3 million) grant from the European Commission
to start the South/Central Kalimantan Production Forest Program
and establish a Forest Liaison Bureau.

The grant was presented during a ceremony attended by Minister
of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo, head of the EC
representation in Jakarta Ambassador Klauspeter Schmallenbach,
Swedish Ambassador Mikael Lindstrom and Finnish Ambassador Hannu
Himanen.

The program is one of a series of EC supported projects
designed to assist the government in developing sustainable
management and optimal utilization of Indonesia's production
forests.

The program would involve the participation of the central and
local governments as well as the private sector and local
communities in South and Central Kalimantan.

The project, which is budgeted at 39 million ECU, is aimed at
developing models for sustainable forest management, improve
forest industry planning and analysis and restore degraded forest
land.

Djamaludin said yesterday Indonesia would continue to welcome
foreign aid for forest development because it demonstrated the
solidarity between tropical timber consumers and producers in
working towards the goals of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro.

"Although we have reforestation funds to develop our forests,
foreign aid -- in the form of funds and technical assistance --
is proof of (the European consumers') commitment to sharing
responsibility over tropical forests," he said.

Djamaludin said the European representatives and his ministry
had agreed that antitropical timber campaigns were
counterproductive and that consumer countries should help more
constructively by contributing to forest preservation.

"In fact, boycotts (on tropical timber) might result in
falling prices of tropical timber, which in turn may cause local
people and forest-based companies to convert their forests into
oil palm estates," he said.

Schmallenbach said the program would put a high priority on
developing human resources, particularly the locals who lived in
the forest areas.

"If we want to achieve the objective of preservation,
sustainable management... a good part of the funds have to be
invested not in the plants, (but) in human resources," he said.

He said it was important to involve the local communities and
guide them in carrying out more productive planting techniques
which take up less land and "less temptation for logging".

"It is also important to educate the local communities to
regard the forests as the most important asset not only for
themselves but for their children and their children's children,"
he said.

The current EC-Indonesia forest program consists of five major
projects. The other projects being implemented are the Indonesian
Forest Sector Support Program, the Forest Fire Prevention and
Control Project, the Bureau Forest Management Program and the
Leuser National Park Development Program.

The total EC commitment to the EC-Indonesia forest program
amounts to over 100 million ECU.

The Forest Liaison Bureau will be established to monitor the
implementation of the EC-Indonesia forest programs and enhance
the dissemination and exchange of information, facilitate
cooperation with other projects in the sector and assist the
Ministry of Forestry in developing policies in support of the
sustainable management of forests in Indonesia. (pwn)