Jakarta – Improving the economic welfare of communities living in forested areas would do little to reduce the widespread illegal logging across the country, environmentalists say. Director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) Indro Sugianto said the most effective way to combat illegal logging was to develop an integrated law enforcement system to use against the logging "mafia", which was known to be backed by elements in government and the security forces.
However, Indro said the poor economic conditions of people living at or near forests had contributed to illegal logging.
"In some cases, illegal logging is a systematic process – and certain parties use the desire of people to improve their welfare to lure the poor into (logging) for their profit," he said on Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in coordination with the European Commission (EC), launched a joint program aiming to preserve tropical forests and reduce illegal logging practices by raising the living standards of local communities.
The EC allocated around 1.2 million Euro (Rp 15.5 billion) for the Small Grants Program for Operations to Promote Tropical Forests (SGP PTF) for a two-year term. The program would cover forested areas in Java, South Sumatra and Central Sulawesi.
The grant would be used to pay for livelihood-based projects designed to reduce poverty among the local people often blamed for taking part in illegal logging.
Data from the Forestry Information Center shows that the rate of deforestation increased from 1.6 million to 1.8 million hectares per year between 1985 and 1997, to more than 2.83 million hectares between 1998 and 2000; 80 percent of which was due to illegal logging.
If the trend continued, there would be no forests left by 2010 in Kalimantan and North Sumatra, the World Bank has predicted.
Environment activists said the fight against illegal logging would be a long one because it was supported by endemic corruption at all levels of government and law enforcement.
The high domestic and international demand for timber also contributed to the increase in illegal logging cases, they said.
Luca Tacconi, a senior economist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), said the improved welfare of local communities would not stop them from illegally logging the forests until the law was firmly enforced against the perpetrators.
"We need to look at complementary measures such as the law, economic situations and the right to forest use," he said.
He said an effective monitoring system that could track changes in deforestation and getting the community involved in managing the forests were two measures that could help reduce illegal logging.
The executive secretary of the Alliance of Indonesian Traditional Communities, Emil Kleben, said the main problem with illegal logging was people's misconception about forest use.
"Urban people equalize the forests with the economy because they see only the trees. For tribal communities, forests are the source of life, religion and the economy," he said.
Commenting on the UNDP-EC's program, Elil said, "It will be successful if it pushes the communities to take their own initiatives in forest conservation and not narrow the problems down to economics, which are only advantageous to certain individuals." (005)