State firms urged to manage 50% of RI forests

State firms urged to manage 50% of RI forests

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned forestry companies should manage at
least 50 percent of the country's productive forests to ensure
sustainable management, which is increasingly demanded by global
society, according to an environmental analyst.

"Currently, state companies control only about 11 percent of
the Indonesian forests. They should control at least 50 percent
of them to guarantee they are sustainably managed," Hasanu Simon,
a lecturer at the Yogyakarta-based University of Gadjah Mada,
said here over the weekend.

He pointed out that private sector companies tend to focus
only on the economic functions of the forests.

According to Hasanu, the government should allow all the six
state-owned companies under the Ministry of Forestry -- PT
Inhutani I, II, III, IV and V as well as Perum Perhutani -- to
take over all of the ill-managed forest concessions for
rehabilitation purposes.

Indonesia, which has long been criticized by local and foreign
environmentalists and donor agencies over its forest management,
has an estimated 109 million hectares of forests, of which only
about 64 million hectares are considered as productive forests.

In 1989 the country had 565 forest concessions, which were
mostly in Kalimantan. Every concessionaire controlled between
20,000 and two million hecatres of forest. Because the government
revoked many of them, the number was reduced to 500 in 1994.

The analyst's statement came amid the government's efforts to
gradually replace the current forest concession system with a new
arrangement called the Forest Management Unit (KPHP) to
anticipate the worldwide application of ecolabelling in the year
2000, a system whereby all wooden products made from sustainable
forests will have special labels attached.

PT Inhutani I's president, A. Fattah DS, said that during the
current Sixth Five Year Development Plan period ending in 1999,
the government will set up 195 KPHPs. Each KPHP will have an
average forest area of 100,000 hectares and will have to be
managed sustainably on a long term basis.

"The establishment of the new system will be finalized all
over Indonesia during the second long term (25-year) development
plan ending in 2019," he noted.

According to Fattah, poor supervision on clear-cut logging has
led to rampant violations in the forestry business.

He cited the unclear border lines among forest concessions as
one example of the shortcomings. "This has made them
(concessionaires) irresponsible about their bordering areas," he
noted.

He said the forest concession's validity of only 20 years is
less than the required recycling period of 35 years.

"In addition to that, concessionaires have no guarantee from
the government that they will have their licenses extended if
they manage their concessions soundly," he noted.

He stated that it has been made even worse by irresponsible
concessionaires, who intentionally violate the government-set
regulations and take advantage of the government's limited
supervision.

According to a recent survey conducted by an independent
commission, concessionaires generally comply only with the
regulations on the diameter of trees to be felled.

Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo recently
blasted recalcitrant forest concessionaires, saying that no
extension will be given to concessionaires violating forestry
rulings, particularly those participating in document forgery and
illegal felling.

"The number of violations has reached a serious level. Not
only do such practices cause financial losses to the state but
they also threaten the environmental sustainability of our
forests," he said. (13)