E-Link: Suharto Resignation Spells Hope for Indonesian Forests (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

SUHARTO RESIGNATION SPELLS HOPE FOR INDONESIAN FORESTS

SAN FRANCISCO, California, May 26, 1998 (ENS) - One of the most active
rainforest conservation group is predicting that the resignation of
Indonesia's longtime President Suharto last week could lead to better
forest health in the Southeast Asian nation. Fires set in Indonesian
forests by loggers and farmers to clear land have blanketed the region with
thick haze for months last fall and again this spring.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is urging the International Monetary
Fund not to resume funding to Indonesia until conditions are met to
establish a popularly elected government there, and to curb the destruction
of the country's old growth rainforests. The International Monetary Fund
placed a moratorium on funding when anti-Suharto demonstrations erupted in
Jakarta early in May.

"Suharto's resignation is an opportunity for Indonesia to achieve not only
social and economic stability, but environmental stability as well," said
RAN campaigns director Christopher Hatch. 

"The massive fires that are destroying Indonesia's rainforests have
international repercussions, and are the direct result of the catastrophic
logging practices of Indonesia's timber companies - many of which have ties
to Suharto's regime," Hatch said.

Tropical forests cover many of the 17,000 islands of the Indonesian
archipelago, including the four largest islands - Sumatra, Kalimantan,
Sulawesi and Irian Jaya. These tropical forests constitute 56 percent of
the total Indonesian land mass, and represent approximately 10 percent of
the world's remaining tropical forests. 

"Indonesia has always been a rogue state when it comes to the environment,"
said Hatch, "and voices that would speak in opposition to government
environmental practices have been silenced as adamantly as those who
opposed Suharto himself."

President Suharto paid lip service to environmental conservation.
"Practices that waste natural resources must be changed to practices that
conserve them," the President said when opening an international Conference
on Zero Emissions at the State Palace on July 31, 1997.

Yet, it is well known within Indonesia that President Suharto consolidated
power during his 32 year reign by allowing rich timber concessions to
political and military supporters.

The Suharto government finally admitted that the fires still burning in
Indonesian Borneo are on commercial logging sites, after helicopter
fly-overs conducted by the Integrated Forest Fire Management Project
(IFFM/gtz), a technical cooperation project between the governments of
Indonesia and Germany provided indisputable evidence, 

On March 17 a big palm oil company was convicted of large-scale illegal
conversion burning during a ground check in the area of Lake Jempang in
East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. This has been a huge step for law
enforcement against powerful forest companies in Indonesia.

IFFM said in late March the fire situation in East Kalimantan had escalated
to an extent that extinguishing the fires is "far beyond any suppression
capabilities." Several large fires have been burning in forest conversion
and concession areas for weeks, and though the provincial government is
very serious about handling the situation, law enforcement still seems too
weak and too slow to get them under control. 

The government agencies themselves are concentrating their suppression
efforts on protected forests under their direct responsibility - Kutai
National Park and Bukit Soeharto. The Army has been deployed to the Kutai
National Park and the park management is fighting fires around the clock. 

The Indonesian rainforest wood lauan, often used in doors and plywood, is
sold in the United States at Home Depot, the target of a RAN campaign to
convince the chain of stores not to carry rainforest timber and consumers
not to purchase products made from it. Other products made from pulped old
growth trees include toilet paper and cellulose products, including rayon,
camera film and cigarette filters.


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