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)