INDONESIAN FOREST POLICIES

IN THE ERA OF CONSERVATION AND REHABILITATION

KEY-NOTE SPEECH

BY

THE MINISTER OF FORESTRY OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA

ON THE OCCASION OF

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ILLEGAL LOGGING

Tokyo, 24 June 2003

· His Excellency Naoto Kitamura, Parliament Secretary, Vice Minister, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries,

· Honorable the Member of Parliament,

· Distinguished Members of Forest & Wood Industry Association,

· Member of Non Government Organizations and Forest Researchers,

· Distinguished guests,

· Ladies & Gentlemen,

First of all let me praise God the Almighty for His blessing that I could convene here in the beautiful country of Japan. It is a great pleasure for me to address at this important International Symposium on Illegal Logging.

As a person with a forestry background, appointed to be the Minister of Forestry by President Megawati two years ago, I was dismayed with the condition of forest resources in my beloved country Indonesia. I am deeply concerned upon learning from our landsat imagery interpretation that the annual average deforestation in the last ten years is estimated of about 1.6 million hectares, and in the last three years is around 2.1 million hectares/year. As the result, 43 million hectares of Indonesian forest has been categorized degraded or deteriorated.

As the Minister of Forestry, I have been ordered by my President to save our forest. Therefore, I had to shift the paradigm of forest utilization which was prominent over the last three decades into the conservation & rehabilitation paradigm. As we are aware, the alteration of paradigm has a consequential effect not only in Indonesia but also for the wood importer countries, including Japan.

According to our data that illegal logging, forest fire, encroachment, and forest conversion are the major causes of deforestation in Indonesia. However, I understand that the sustainability of our tropical forest is not only the interest of the Indonesian people but also to the people around the world, including Japan.

Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen,

Indonesian forest policy framework is to sustain the forest for the Indonesian people prosperity. The vision of the Ministry of Forestry of Indonesia is pursuance to the sustainable forest management and to strengthen the national economic for people's prosperity. The missions are namely protecting the forest area, rehabilitating forest and land, encouragement to conserve the natural resources, optimizing the function of forest utilization, encouraging the people's participation on the forestry development, which is in line with the spirit of decentralization.

Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen,

Government of Indonesia designates 3 (three) major categories of forest: (1) Conservation Forest area is about 19 million hectares provided to conserve unique bio-diversity, (2) Protection forest area is about 31 million hectares with the primary function to support the living system such as providing potable water, preventing from erosion and flooding, and (3) Production forest is about 64 million hectares intended to produce timber in sustainable manner. Out of the above categories, we provide Conversion Forest designated for the non-forestry development of about 8 million hectares. As I explain previously that about 43 million hectares of Indonesian forest has been degraded or deteriorated. Degraded forest is not only in the Production Forest but also in the Protection Forest and Conservation Forest areas. For that reason, until the next 20 years in the future, Indonesian forestry would be on the era of rehabilitation and conservation. In line with the Ministry of Forestry vision & mission, we have determined 5 (five) forestry priority programs: (1) Combating Illegal Logging, (2) Controlling & suppressing forest fire, (3) Restructuring forestry sector, (4) Rehabilitation and Conservation of the forest resources, and (5) Decentralization process in forestry sector. The implementation of the five-priority programs is through 3 (three) strategies of social forestry program: utilization, rehabilitation and conservation.

Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen,

With regard to the implementation of the priority program, efforts have been made by the Ministry of Forestry, in collaboration with other institutions such as the Ministry of Industry & Trade, Ministry of Transportation, National Police, Indonesian Navy, and Army.

With regard to combating illegal logging, many efforts have been taken by the Ministry of Forestry. A long list of evident has been confiscated, and some encouraging judicial processes and severe punishment including imprisoning have taken place. On the other hand, along with security personnel, we have dedicated a lot of efforts to reduce illegal logging through joint operations mainly within the conservation areas. We are aware that illegal logging and associated trade in illegally logged timber is not merely the responsibility of Indonesian people but also the people all over the world. For that reason, we also have been initiating international cooperation (bilateral, regional and multilateral) to jointly combat illegal logging.

With regard to forest fire prevention, Indonesian Government has issued a regulation to severely punish those who are responsible to the occurrence of forest and land fires. We also develop fire prevention system such as early warning systems and community involvement. In the fire-prone national parks, we develop a fire brigade namely Forest Fire Brigade. Until now, the brigade has been established in 5 (five) provinces, and 1,080 personnels have been trained to become forest fire fighters.

Restructuring Forestry Sector starts with the "soft landing" to decrease the annual national logs production harvested from natural forest. In the past we harvested of about 20 million cubic meters per year, however, in the year of 2002, the national allowable cut was decreased down to 12 million cubic meters, and in the year 2003 it is about 7 million cubic meters. The restructurization is also applied to the concession holders and timber industries. The main purpose of this policy is to maintain the sustainability of the forest resources as well as to increase the efficiency, so that inefficient industry will soon close down due to their inability to survive from hard competition.

The priority policy on rehabilitation and conservation of forest resource is implemented by rehabilitating and reforesting degraded forest area and conserving the large number of valuable natural forestland. We also encourage plantation of timber industry to alleviate our dependency on natural forest.

To strengthen decentralization on forestry sector, we are indeed facing resistance. This is due to the existence of certain parties who would like to immediately gain authority in forestry, and use their authority in irresponsible manner. Finally, the forest resource has to be sacrificed. We have a clear obsession and conception to gradually provide authority over the forestry sector to local governments, of course when all concerted parties are ready to do so and responsible to ensure forest sustainability. Therefore, we continuously maintain mutual understanding between central and local governments, including establishing understanding on the concept of sustainable forest management through public consultation process, strengthening human resources in local level and their institutions.

Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I have mentioned previously, the achievement of the priority programs should be implemented through the strategy of utilization, rehabilitation, and conservation. In the utilization strategy because Indonesia could no longer depend on the timber from natural forest, we need to develop timber production from forest plantation and utilization of non-wood forest products. It is time to Indonesia to develop alternative utilization of forest, for instance as nature tourism and eco-tourism. We also have to continuously develop our forest utility, to provide environmental services.

Rehabilitation strategy should be applied on degraded production forest, development of forest plantation and maintaining the conservation & protection functions. Conservation strategy is focused on managing the conservation areas, setting up the ecosystem conservation management, and also conserving wild species of flora & fauna.

Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen,

To achieve the sustainable forest management, more strategies should be developed, including optimizing non-wood products utilization, balancing of consumption & production of timber, accelerating of forest plantation development, increasing the productivity of degraded forest areas, maintaining conservation areas and promoting of new conservation areas.

As I have stated earlier that the alteration of Indonesian forest management paradigm, off course, will make impact not only in Indonesia. For Japan for instance, Indonesian soft landing policy will affect Indonesian ability to fulfil the demand of wood panel in Japan. In response to this, we need the understanding and support from the Japanese, which is the biggest market of Indonesian wood panel. Economically, decreasing of supply will cause various forms of smuggling, generally produced from illegal logging. Therefore, I really do hope support from all of you, especially the Indonesian wood consumers, to consistently refuse woods from wherever sources it may, including from Indonesia, be indicated as illegal timber. I believe that this is one the concrete supports that will contribute to the sustainability of the precious tropical forest resources, which is considered as the world's lung.

Your Excellency Mr. Naoto Kitamura, Parliaments members, the members of forest and wood industry, NGO's and Forest Researchers, by that, I conclude my presentation. Thank you for your kind attention.

MUHAMMAD PRAKOSA

MINISTER OF FORESTRY