Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – The West Java administration has decided to suspend all industrial logging for the next three years in an attempt to re-green its barren forest areas, which have contributed to environmental deterioration and natural disasters such as floods and landslides over the last few years.
With the decision it hoped it would have a "breathing space" to rehabilitate its devastated forest and draft a bylaw to control its forestry and maintain its sustainable development program.
Mubiar Purwasasmita, an environment expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), told a media conference here on Wednesday that the moratorium on logging was the only feasible option for seeking a comprehensive solution to salvaging the province's forests, 95 percent of which had been converted to farmland and housing complexes.
"The suspension is more like shock therapy to local people, businesspeople and also the government following their failure to deal with the prolonged deforestation. All sides have yet to realize that the forest is already in a alarming condition," said Mubiar, also a member of the bylaw drafting team.
The media conference facilitated by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) is part of a campaign for a national moratorium on logging. West Java province is the first administration to carry out such policy.
The suspension was imposed under a gubernatorial decree issued on Nov. 26, 2001, which orders state-owned timber company PT Perhutani and the provincial forestry unit to stop industrial logging from March 2002. The decree allows the logging only of teak but not from the preserved forests.
Under regional autonomy, the provincial administration has taken full control of the province's forests from state-owned PT Perhutani in the light of rampant illegal logging and intensive conversion of forest areas into agricultural land and housing complexes. That has caused flooding and landslides in critical areas of the province, including Bandung, the provincial capital. It aims to convert 40 percent of the barren areas into conservation areas by 2010.
Husein said the forested areas in the province had halved from 1.5 million hectares in the 1970s to 770,000 hectares in the 1990s. Some 70 percent of the remaining forest was damaged due to rapid population growth in the province.
The presence of villas and housing compounds in the Puncak mountain resort, a protected forest located in Bogor and Cianjur regencies, and the overflowing Citarum river in the province have also contributed to the recent flooding in Jakarta.
The issuance of the decree was forced by the indigenous people who believe that 45 percent to 55 percent of the province's 4.4 million square kilometer area should be covered by forest. In the indigenous people's declaration, titled Manglayang Demands, the residents point out that they want to designate the forest as a resource for their livelihood and culture and also, to maintain sustainable forest development and economic growth.
Former West Java governor Solihin GP, who is also member of the People's Consultative Assembly, said that business-oriented Perhutani no longer managed the forest. "The moratorium is essential to rehabilitate the forest. The loggers, who lost their jobs, can change profession to become helpers who reforest the province," he said.