Walhi seeks boycott of RI timber

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) is seeking a worldwide boycott of Indonesian wood products, saying that over 70 percent of the country's logs come from illegal sources.

Walhi director Longgena Ginting said a worldwide boycott would help save Indonesia's rapidly disappearing forests.

"This suggestion might be considered too much but it is necessary if Indonesia expects to preserve its forestry industry in the future," he said in a letter sent to forestry minister M. Prakosa.

Walhi also called for a moratorium on all logging here and a boycott of wood products from countries believed to launder illegally cut logs from Indonesia.

The government has accused neighboring Malaysia of laundering smuggled Indonesian wood and has called on the international community to boycott wood products from Malaysia.

Malaysia, a fellow member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has denied the allegation.

According to Longgena, overcapacity in the country's wood industry has worsened illegal logging.

"The forestry ministry has set this year's annual log quota at 5.8 million cubic meters while demand for wood products from sawmills, plywood factories and pulp companies is about 80 million cubic meters annually," he said on Wednesday.

Longgena suggested the government downsize the country's wood industry by cutting the number of wood processors in order that the demand for logs could be met by the annual log quota.

Also in its letter, Walhi told Minister Prakosa that it supported initiatives to curb illegal logging.

Prakosa earlier called for a worldwide boycott of wood from Malaysia, which he accused of laundering illegal wood products from Indonesia.

Malaysia, he said, was known as the biggest buyer of illegal Indonesian logs and continued to plead its ignorance about the problem.

Prakosa said the government had urged some foreign governments, including in the European Union, not to import wood products from Malaysia.

The government's stance is supported by the Environmental Investigation Agency and several U.S. non-governmental organizations that have called on the U.S. government to impose trade sanctions against Malaysia.

They say that Malaysia is the recipient of smuggled ramin hardwood, an endangered species found only in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Malaysia, they say, has turned a blind eye to large-scale smuggling of illegal timber from neighboring Indonesia.

Indonesia has lost some 40 percent of its 160 million hectares of forest within the last 20 years due to illegal logging.

It has been predicted that Indonesia will lose its forests in Kalimantan by 2010 and those in Sumatra by 2005.