| THE POLITICS OF EXTINCTION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A Future Without Forests? - Indonesia's Forest Cover
Indonesia's tropical forests are second only in size to those of Brazil, covering around 109 million hectares in 1995.1 They represent 80% of South-East Asia's forests2 and 10% of the world's tropical forest cover.3 They are among the world's most biodiverse ecosystems. Officially, Indonesia continues to claim 143 million hectares of forests.4 However, even Indonesian Government figures for forest cover vary greatly, with estimates as low as 92.4 million hectares, covering just 48.1% of the total land area.5 In 1994 the Minister of Forestry reported that "...we used to claim that we had 141 million hectares of forests. It turned out that only 80% of the estimated area holds forests."6 According to the available figures, the deforestation rate from 1982 to 1993 was 2.4 million hectares per year, far greater than the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimate of 1.3 million hectares during the period 1982-1991.7 Recent satellite images suggest current forest cover is closer to 53%.8 A report quoting "non-official estimates" put the loss of natural forests in excess of 40 million m3 per year, a rate which will see the exhaustion of large-sized old-growth forests between 2005 and 2010.9 The World Resources Institute found that 72% of Indonesia's original "frontier" forest (relatively undisturbed and displaying the original ecological features) has been lost and of the remainder, 54% is under immediate threat.10 Clearly, the removal of natural forests has not been matched by the much-vaunted timber plantation programmes.
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