Indonesia loses 40 million forest acres
Date: 1/22/2001 6:57:57 AM 
From: rainrelief@yahoo.com (Jeff Lockwood)

Indonesia Has Lost At Least 40 Million Acres of
Forests in Last 30 Years Due to Logging and Expansion
of Palm Oil and Timber Plantations. 
(7/20/2000)
As the forest fire season rages in Indonesia, a highly
critical report from the World Resources Institute
warns that these fires will continue to occur unless
the government makes drastic changes on how to manage
the country's remaining forests. "Current Indonesian
forest policies have provided powerful legal
incentives for 'cut-and-run' resource extraction,"
said Dr. Charles V. Barber, one of the authors of the
report, Trial by Fire: Forest Fires and Forestry
Policy in Indonesia's Era of Crisis and Reform. "They
have failed to create effective mechanisms for
enforcing even minimum standards of forest resource
stewardship."

The report examines the destruction and systematic
plunder of Asia's greatest rainforests under former
Indonesian president Suharto. During his 32-year rule,
Indonesia lost at least 40 million hectares of
forests, equivalent to the combined size of Germany
and the Netherlands. Much of these forests were
granted as timber concessions to Suharto's cronies,
his family and to ill-fated government projects like
the failed effort to convert one million hectares of
peat swamp forests in Central Kalimantan into rice
fields. In the 1990s, oil palm and timber plantations
replaced additional millions of hectares of forest.
Illegal logging has become so prevalent, accounting
for an estimated half of the annual production.

The report focuses on the 1997-1998 forest fires in
Indonesia that resulted in the burning of 10 million
hectares of forests. The smoke shrouded many towns in
darkness at noon and exposed 20 million people across
Southeast Asia to harmful smoke-borne pollutants for
months. According to the government, total losses in
1997 because of forest fires reached as much as US$9.3
billion. This is more than double the combined damages
assessed in the Exxon Valdez oil spill and India's
Bhopal disaster.

Many of these fires were deliberately set by
plantation owners who take advantage of the dry season
to clear the forests and plant export crops like palm
oil. The problem was worsened by a drought induced by
the periodic El Niño climatic phenomenon, which was
particularly severe that year. Scientists predict that
El Niño will reoccur within the next few years,
increasing the chances for more fires. 

"The forest fires of 1997 and 1998 were just the
latest symptom of a destructive system of forest
resource management carried out by the former Suharto
regime over 30 years," said Dr. Barber. He stressed
that in order to prevent future infernos, the solution
lies in the major restructuring of relationships
between the state, the private sector and the millions
of forest-dependent peoples living in the nation's
forests.

This is only an abstract. See the full article(s) at:

(07/20/2000) ENN: New WRI Report Warns of Continuing
Destruction of Indonesia's Forests.