AN EPIDEMIC of illegal logging is being blamed for Indonesia鈥檚 soaring rates
of forest loss over the past four years. It is now responsible for up to a
quarter of all the forest that disappears globally every year.
According to a detailed study of Indonesia鈥檚 forests, published last week in
Washington DC and Jakarta, the country鈥檚 annual loss of natural forest doubled
in the 1990s to 2 million hectares. One of the study鈥檚 authors, Togu Manurung of
Forest Watch Indonesia, told New Scientist the figure has almost
doubled again since 1998, and could now be approaching 3.6 million hectares.
鈥淭his is due to the worsening situation with illegal logging and the
breakdown of law and order since the fall of President Suharto,鈥� says Manurung.
The higher figure represents a quarter of the natural forests lost
globally鈥�14 million hectares annually according to the UN. 鈥淒eforestation
on this scale, at this speed, is unprecedented,鈥� says co-author Emily Matthews
of the Washington-based World Resources Institute.
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Earlier this month, scientists also reported that the Tesso Nilo rainforest
on the Indonesian island of Sumatra will probably be chopped down within four
years. The rainforest has the highest recorded plant biodiversity of any lowland
rainforest in the world.
Indonesia reaped financial reward from its forests during the 1980s and 90s,
though Manurung says that economic miracle was 鈥渂ased on ecological
devastation鈥�. Suharto granted massive numbers of permits for logging in the
country, and it rapidly became the world鈥檚 largest supplier of plywood.
Yet political and economic collapse since Suharto鈥檚 downfall in 1998 seems
only to have accelerated forest loss. While legal cutting has fallen since 1995,
logging overall is still on the rise.
In tough times, millions of unemployed urban workers swell the logging gangs
in Sumatra and Borneo. Matthews estimates that two-thirds of the timber traded
in Indonesia in 2000 was illegal. Satisfying the demand from the country鈥檚
plywood and pulp mills 鈥渕ay exceed legal supply by as much as 40 million cubic
metres annually鈥�, she says.
In November, the government鈥檚 fourth forests minister in four years, Muhammad
Prakosa, promised to crack down on illegal logging. He fears that Sumatra could
be treeless by 2005 and Borneo by 2010. But Matthews says that much-touted
reforestation programmes have already come to grief. And, she adds, a new policy
for devolving control of forests to the provinces is likely to undermine
Prakosa鈥檚 efforts.