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Disappearing Forests

Since 1998 the focus of EIA’s forest campaign has been the sprawling archipelago of Indonesia. Working with our Indonesian partner Telapak, EIA has conducted a series of in-depth investigations to reveal the extent and nature of illegal logging throughout the country. We have published the names of those behind the forest destruction and lobbied at the highest levels of national and international government in a bid to secure political action to tackle the rapacious spread of illegal logging and the corrupt forces at the heart of the on-going destruction.

Indonesia comprises over 17,000 islands and spans two bio-geographic realms – the Indo-Malayan and the Australasian. Around 60 per cent of the country is forested, with around 10 per cent of the world’s tropical forests found in Indonesia. These precious forests can be divided into two broad types – wetland forests, including mangrove, swamp and peat types, and dry land forests, such as tropical, montane and sub-alpine rainforests.

These forests host an astounding array of biological diversity and richness not seen elsewhere in South-East Asia. Despite only covering 1.3 per cent of the earth’s land surface, Indonesia contains a disproportionate amount of global biodiversity – 10 per cent of plant species, 12 per cent of mammal species, 16 per cent of reptile species and 17 per cent of bird species are found in the country.

The fact that Indonesia also has a longer list of endangered species than any other country is a stark illustration of the heavy toll exacted on Indonesia’s unique flora and fauna by decades of unrestrained forest exploitation. It has also been disastrous for the estimated 60 million Indonesians who depend on forests for their livelihood.

Indonesia’s forests are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Already around 70 per cent of the country’s original "frontier" forest has been lost, leaving around only 100 million hectares of forest cover. The rate of deforestation is accelerating at an alarming pace – in the late 1980s the annual loss was around one million hectares, but by 2002 it had doubled to over two million hectares every year. If this trend continues unabated experts predict that lowland forests will have effectively disappeared from Sumatra by 2005, and from Kalimantan by 2010.

Massive illegal logging is driving forest loss across Indonesia. In what has been dubbed the world’s largest environmental crime, over 80 per cent of timber felled in Indonesia comes from illegal sources.

Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism

The roots of the current forest crisis can be traced back to the mid-1960s and the ascendancy of the dictatorial President Suharto, who ran the country for over 30 years through a combination of intimidation and cronyism. In 1967 Suharto issued a law appropriating all forest lands for the state – effectively disenfranchising the millions of forest-dwelling people and overturning the traditional "adat" system of land tenure.

Suharto then distributed huge tracts of forest land to his family and close business confidantes, who set about tearing down the forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan with impunity. Under this concession system forests which had provided sustenance for indigenous communities for generations, were taken and handed out to a small coterie of the business, government and military elite, whose motivation was to make as much money as quickly as possible.

By the mid-1990s Suharto and his close family and associates held sway over eight million hectares of forests. His business cronies also profited – Prayogo Pangestu’s Barito Pacific group controlled 3.5 million hectares of forests, while Bob Hasan’s Kalimanis Group owned three million hectares. Both of these conglomerates continue operations today.

The concession system opened the way for massive, unsustainable industrial logging. Impoverishing local communities, all the major players took vast profits from the forests back to Jakarta while, and used the security apparatus to quell any dissent. The whole system was riddled with illegalities, whereby regulations governing the logging operations were routinely flouted. By 1993 the Ministry of Forestry’s own figures showed that 84 per cent of concession owners were breaking the rules.

It took the climatic El Nino weather event of 1997 and 1998 to reveal the full scale of wanton destruction visited upon Indonesia’s forests by the Suharto regime. Due to a severe drought throughout the country, massive forest fires erupted and captured the headlines around the world. Decades of mismanagement and greed had turned the country’s precious rainforests into kindling, and over two million hectares of forests burned. Although the government and timber industry tried to blame the catastrophic fires on poor farmers using slash and burn techniques, satellite technology revealed the true culprits to be logging and plantation companies using fire to clear land for further exploitation.

EIA travelled to Indonesia in 1998 to document the causes and impact of the forest fires, specifically on populations of the endangered orangutan. In Central Kalimantan EIA found stark evidence of the senseless environmental destruction that characterised Suharto’s rule. Under direct presidential instruction a million hectares of natural peat swamp forest had been cleared for rice production, but due to the acidic peat soil the area was unsuitable for rice cultivation. EIA found a haunting, devastated landscape from which indigenous people and wildlife had fled. Transmigrants, moved into the area to grow rice, were living in abject poverty. The real reason behind the scheme was simply to grab more timber. (See EIA report 'Politics of Extinction')

When Suharto came to view his great work, local officials had to bring in rice shoots and lay them on top of the barren soil, for the dictator could not be seen to have failed. Yet by mid-1998, with the Asian economic collapse and forest fires once more raging, the people of Indonesia rebelled and Suharto fell from power, leaving behind an appalling legacy of systemic corruption and devastated forests. Sadly the tragedy of Indonesia’s forests was about to get worse.

The New Timber Barons

In the aftermath of over three-decades of dictatorship, Indonesia has been wracked by political and economic instability. This chaos has paved the way for the emergence of a new class of regional timber barons to augment the Jakarta-based cronies of Suharto who are still in business.

Whilst Suharto and his cohorts presided over a centralised system of natural resource kleptomania, the new breed of timber boss operates from a regional power base and tends to dispense with the masquerade of owning legitimate forest concessions, preferring to operate totally outside the law and to enlist the politicians, police and military through pay-offs. In the last five years these bosses have orchestrated a rapid acceleration in illegal logging, which afflicts virtually every protected forest left in Indonesia.

In 1999 EIA, with partners Telapak, returned to Central Kalimantan to investigate the rampant illegal logging in one so-called "protected" area - the world-renowned orangutan sanctuary of Tanjung Puting National Park - and entered the realm of Abdul Rasyid, the epitome of the regional illegal logging baron.

Following extensive investigations inside the park, EIATelapak traced huge amounts of illegally cut ramin timber being transported by river to factories owned by the company Tanjung Lingga. Posing as foreign investors EIA/Telapak gained access to one of the company’s three huge ramin factories, and documented the processing of illegal, unmarked ramin logs. It was clear that Tanjung Lingga, owned by Abdul Rasyid, was a major force behind the brazen logging of Tanjung Puting. (See EIA report 'The Final Cut')

EIA and Telapak released their findings at a press conference in Jakarta in August 1999, and called for a full investigation into Rasyid’s companies. Around the same time, Rasyid solidified his political position by becoming a regional representative for Central Kalimantan in the national parliament. The link between illegal logging, corruption and political patronage was becoming clearer.

In January 2000 EIA and Telapak went back to Tanjung Puting to continue probing the activities of Tanjung Lingga. Whilst in the remote town of Pangkalanbun, two investigators from EIATelapak were abducted by company workers, assaulted and threatened with death. It took strenuous efforts and high-level political intervention to secure their release. The power of Rasyid, derived from a massive illegal logging business and political bribery, became clear during this ordeal – both the provincial governor and the local police chief acted to defend Rasyid’s interest, showing the level of corruption resulting from Rasyid’s illegal activities. (See EIA briefing 'Illegal Logging in Tanjung Puting National Park')

In 2000 the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry published a list of 18 of the most powerful regional illegal logging bosses in the country, including Rasyid. To date none of these suspects have been fully investigated.

Progress Undermined by Corruption

Faced with mass of evidence on the scale of illegal logging and pressure from the international community, Indonesia has introduced some steps to clamp down on illegal logging, most of which have occurred since mid-2001 when the reformist Forestry Minister Muhammad Prakosa took office.

EIA and Telapak have played a leading role in lobbying the Indonesian government to implement urgent measures to tackle the forest crisis, and progress has been made in a number of areas:

• In August 2001 Indonesia banned the cutting of ramin trees and placed the timber species on Appendix III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species with a zero quota, effectively banning international trade in Indonesian ramin.
  
• In October 2001 Indonesia banned the export of logs, facilitating action against vessels transporting logs outside Indonesian waters.
  
• Indonesia has reduced the annual allowable cut, from around 20 million cubic metres in 2000 to just 6.5 million cubic metres in 2003.
  
• The Ministry of Forestry has formalised joint enforcement operations with both the navy and police, resulting in the seizure of a number of ships, trucks and logging equipment.
  
• The Ministry of Forestry has begun a programme of random inspection of large sawmills and factories. To date all eight factories inspected have been discovered using illegal logs.
  
• The Indonesian government has signed a number of agreements with other countries to enlist international support in the fight against illegal logging, including the United Kingdom, China and Japan.
  
• In 2002 the Indonesian government banned foreign vessels from carrying timber within Indonesian waters and made it a requirement for all timber exporters to be registered.
  
• While the Ministry of Forestry deserves appreciation for taking practical steps to tackle illegal logging, the political commitment elsewhere in Indonesia is still lacking. The military plays a key role in supporting illegal logging operations and has manifestly failed to rein in officers and troops blatantly involved in timber smuggling enterprises, successful convictions are pitifully rare.
  

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