Indonesia: Post CGI Forestry Meeting

JAKARTA, January 27, 2000--Indonesia's forests - often overlooked in the past few years as Government, donors, and other agencies struggled to deal with the devastating effects of the financial crisis - can no longer lag behind the other priority issues of Indonesia, declared the group of Government representatives, private sector representatives, donors, NGOs, and other stakeholders that gathered in Jakarta yesterday for the Post CGI Seminar on Indonesian Forests: Removing the Constraints .

Minister Kwik Kian Gie, Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Finance, and Industry, and host of the meeting, welcomed the group and stated that although there are many difficult choices for the Government to make right now, and challenges to tackle - including the bank recapitalization program, corporate restructuring, corruption, and civil service reform - forestry is a problem no less urgent, and there are immediate steps that can be taken.

The large and diverse group gathered to address pressing problems of Indonesia's forestry sector, and to discuss ways in which they could work together in the months ahead to move towards a sustainable, long-term forest strategy that takes into account the many and at times conflicting concerns represented at today's meeting - economic development and industry, government capacity and enforcement, environmental and conservation concerns, and the rights of local communities and traditional users.

Minister of Forestry and Estate Crops Dr. Nurmahmudi Ismail explained in his keynote speech that the responsibility for the forests is everyones' - the government, the private sector, the communities - and that it is time for everyone, both nationally and internationally, to "coordinate, not only in words, but in real actions." He welcomed donors' support in helping to put together a national forest program: one that is broad-based, balanced, and sustainable in the long-term.

Many of the presenters - some from NGOs, some from academia, some from Government - painted a bleak picture of the current state of the forests. Rates of deforestation - the permanent disappearance of natural forest - are estimated at 1.6 million hectares a year for the past 13 years, most of it valuable lowland forests. - One BAPPENAS-ADB study estimated the forest fires of 1997-98 resulted in losses of 9.7 million hectares burned, similar to the size of Hungary, Jordan, or South Korea, while economic losses, in terms of damage to the forestry, agriculture, health, transportation, and tourist industries, were estimated as $9.3 billion. Fifty percent of the orangutan population in Leuser National Park have been lost. An investigative video on illegal logging, "The Final Cut", was shown to the group, offering a glimpse of the destructive activities being carried on with impunity in Central Kalimantan and northern Sumatra, even in national parks. The afternoon session focused on exploring new directions in forest management and positive advances (such as some pilot programs in forestry) and the issue of local land rights and traditional users.

World Bank Indonesia Country Director Mark Baird in his remarks reiterated the willingness of the donor community to help the Government in any way they can with better management of Indonesia's forests, and said that this meeting is just one step of the process, but an important one. "In a way," Baird said, "the forestry sector is a microcosm of the challenges that Indonesia's people, government and economy face today. Technical issues of natural resource management need to be tackled, but the more fundamental concerns that affect many sectors--corruption, governance and judicial reform, banking and corporate restructuring, social equity and poverty-- must be tackled on the way to any solution in this one."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Follow up to today's meeting will take place next week, during the Consultative Group for Indonesia (CGI) aid coordination meeting be held February 1-2, 2000, in Jakarta, Indonesia.