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)