SBY's 1.8 million hectare disaster?

SBY's 1.8 million hectare disaster?

We all remember Soeharto's disastrous 1 million hectare sawah
(rice field) project in Central Kalimantan, the
consequences of which still affect the province.

Will President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) attach his name
to an even bigger ecological, sociological, climatic and
financial disaster and scandal with the 1.8 million hectare palm
oil plantations project in the center of Kalimantan?

Agricultural experts knew that rice could not grow in the peat
swamps of the 1 million hectare Soeharto project; now the Bogor
experts warn that, besides all the disastrous effects on the
physical and human environment of the project, the fact is that
the area designated is not suitable for sawit palm.
Then what? Another sawit scheme,-- allowing the logging and
total deforestation of 1.8 million hectares of rain forest,
comprising two national parks, for the benefit of some mainland
China companies -- and then goodbye?

It would not be the first time such a scheme would be carried
out but certainly the most gigantic so far. This would
undoubtedly discredit this reform President, his forestry and
agricultural ministries, two governors and a number of regents.

All my wishes go out to the Indonesian Forum for the
Environment (WALHI) and the Dayak organizations in their efforts
to prevent this tsunami of greed.

RASHID CARRI
Palangkaraya,
Central Kalimantan