Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Most forest and land rehabilitation programs launched by the central government have failed to reduce deforestation because locals refuse to become involved, officials and activists said.
Head of Central Java's Wonosobo village, Kholiq Arif, said residents were more interested in protecting their interests rather than following the government's rehabilitation guidelines.
"The government's programs are simply dead," Kholiq told the seminar.
"Past experience shows if the locals follows what the government says, they will lose their income or their land for nothing."
The seminar was organized by USAID and the Environmental Service Programs (ESP), an international non-governmental organization focused on forest, land and water.
Imam Muhammad of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Central Java chapter said most Central Java farmers who were NU members were disappointed with the government's rehabilitation and reforestation programs.
He said the government had not honored its promises and farmers were not paid after planting their land with seeds.
"We lost our time, money and land by joining the programs," he said.
Imam and Kholiq said the government should stop the programs and rechannel funds directly to people.
The Forestry Ministry said the government needed more than Rp 8 trillion (US$879.12 million) to rehabilitate two million hectares of forest in 2007.
Murniati, a researcher at the Research Center for Forest Development and Nature Conservation, said although the government planted many trees year after year, only a few survived.
"It's due to a lack of participation from the locals and the absence of programs after the plantating period," she said. "So, many trees just died."
Murniati said according to her research with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the government managed to plant trees across 72 percent of total damaged forests, but only 25 percent of the trees survived.
Abidah Billah Setyowaty of the ESP said based on his organization's experience in helping villagers across six provinces, locals could successfully "fix" their own land and forests at minimum cost and without the government's help.
Lawmaker and former environmental minister Sonny Keraf said participation from farmers and the private sector was the key to successful rehabilitation and reforestation programs.
Forestry Ministry's director for land and forest rehabilitation Djoko Winarno said there were not enough funds to realize the government's rehabilitation and reforestation programs and blamed a slow disbursement of money from the state budget.
"We need Rp 11 trillion for the rehabilitation of 1.7 hectares of forest in 2007, but we only have Rp 325 billion," he said. Some 1.08 million hectares of Indonesian forests are degraded each year, Djoko said.