Moch. N. Kurniawan and Suherdjoko, Semarang/Jakarta – Due to a threat to the water supply of 128 million people living on Java, the government declared on Monday a ban on logging and decided to review farming policies on this densely populated island.
Speaking after a Cabinet meeting held to discuss the drought, Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said the government had decided to ban logging in Java to preserve water for the population. "Our decision has been to stop logging in Java," Kalla said.
All commercial plantations and logging activities in Java are controlled by state-owned forest company Perhutani. With the logging ban, Perhutani has been asked not to use its land for wood production anymore. Kalla said Perhutani should now focus on its non-logging business activities such as ecotourism.
In addition to a logging ban, Kalla said that the government would also gradually increase reforestation efforts in Java.
He said reforestation funds for this year, which stood at Rp 1.2 trillion (US$142 million) to replant 300,000 hectares of wooded area across the country, would gradually be raised to Rp 8 trillion to cover one million hectares in 2005. He did not specify how great were the funds allocated for reforestation in Java. Forest accounts for only about 5 percent of Java's total land area – far below the ideal of 20 percent to 30 percent. Even so, much of this small, forested area in Java has been destroyed by illegal logging.
Kalla said the logging ban and reforestation should increase water reserves on the island, where more than half of Indonesia's 212 million people lived.
Meanwhile, State Minister of the Environment Nabiel Makarim said on Monday that without a significant change in direction water in Java would continue to deplete while the population continued to grow; therefore, a water crisis was imminent.
This year alone, Java is estimated to suffer a water deficit of 13 billion cubic meters. Demand for water remains at 38 billion cubic meters, while Java can supply only 25 billion cubic meters.
"Thus, we must reduce farming and plantation activities in Java, and relocate them outside Java," he said, adding that the type of agriculture to be moved away from Java would be the variety that absorbed water, such as rice farming.
Nabiel went on to say that land conversion must also be stopped, while reforestation should be carried out immediately.
On the same occasion, Kalla said the government had started on Monday the distribution of 1,800 tons of free rice to farmers affected by drought in 18 regencies in Java.
He said the government had sent a team of officials to monitor the distribution of free rice to avoid its misuse.
Nevertheless, much of the rice had not yet reached farmers as of Monday, as promised by the government.
In Subang, West Java, for example, the distribution of free rice in the regency had yet to materialize due to bureaucratic delays.
"We received a fax from the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) early on Monday. But we have to get permission beforehand from the Subang administration to distribute the rice to needy areas," said deputy head of Subang Logistics Depot (Dolog) Endi Suhendi.
Meanwhile, Bachtiar, the head of Dolog Semarang, Central Java, said his office had distributed 600 tons of free rice to its branch offices in Rembang, Grobogan, Demak, Wonogiri, Sragen and Cilacap.
According to Kalla, the government would distribute a total of 20,000 tons of free rice until October, and would increase the distribution to 30,000 tons if the drought continued until November.
Some 100,000 hectares of farmland have reportedly experienced crop failure due to the current drought, which has affected about 250,000 farmers.