INDONESIA-ENVIRONMENT: Logging Threat Looms Over Birds’ Paradise

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

JAYAPURA, Indonesia, Feb 6 1996 (IPS) - High up in the alpine forests on the island of New Guinea in the South Pacific, a group of black and white kangaroos live in trees — a different scene to that in Australia, where the mammals are at home on the ground.

Look further, and birds of paradise — with feathers that have graced the heads of royalty for centuries — can be spotted in the lowland swamp forests. Also to be found is the aggressive and unusual bird-eating spider, as well as fish that spit gobs of water to catch insects.

Environmental activists warn the days of these beautiful and unique creatures may be numbered because the Jakarta government — concerned about a shortage of timber wood — is encouraging Indonesian logging companies to chop down the forests, the largest in Asia, and worldwide, second only to the Amazon.

The western half of this bird-shaped island is called Irian Jaya by the Indonesian government which has controlled it for the past 34 years (the other half is the independent country of Papua New Guinea – PNG). Local people often prefer to use the name West Papua for the Indonesian half.

Last week Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo, Indonesia’s forest minister, told a government commission in Jakarta, that he will encourage forest concessionaries to step up their logging of the 41 million hectares of Irian Jaya’s forests, which represent almost 30 per cent of Indonesia’s total forested land.

“The concessionaries in Irian Jaya are presently either inactive or have had their licenses revoked,” says the minister, expressing concern that Indonesia’s plywood mills face timber shortages which may force the country to import wood this month.

Activists say this could place at risk many of the estimated 100,000 insect species, 16,000 plant species, 3,000 fish species, 643 bird species (including 36 of the 42 types of birds of paradise known), 800 different types of spiders, and numerous amphibians, reptiles and mammals.

They also say that increased logging will threaten the lives of the 1.3 million peoples who depend on the forests for their survival. The forest peoples make up four out of five members of the region’s population and represent some 250 distinct cultures.

“The destruction of the forests (will turn) the lives of thousands of forest peoples into a tragic situation,” says Martin Patay, from the Rural Community Development Foundation, known here as YPMD after the Indonesian acronym of its name.

Statistics from the Irian Jaya Province Forestry Service show that there are already 68 forestry concessions in Irian which generated 1.3 million cubic metres of wood in 1992-93, three times the rate a decade ago. Indonesia’s total estimated log production was 26.5 million cubic metres for 1992.

Government promotional material states that 100 of the 1,000 tree species on Irian have commercial value. The government says that the “minimum annual allowable cut” (the government also sets a maximum level) is now 3.9 million cubic metres.

Ironwood – an insect-free hardwood, sago – a softwood, and rattan are some of the woods the government is promoting to be cut. Jakarta is also offering licences for new sawmills and pulp mills in Irian. Sawmill licences are no longer issued on any other of Indonesia’s islands.

But current logging practices are already taking their toll on local people, say activists.

“The shape of this island is rather like a cassowary bird. For the Mee people who live in Nabire — that’s roughly where the neck of the bird would be — say it takes them three to five days to find tree kangaroos or wildboar. In the past it only took them half a day,” says one activist.

Patay says the Wooi farmers of Yapen island, which is north of Nabire, have discovered that the taro plant — a food staple — has recently begun decreasing in size which they blame on the erosion that has resulted from widespread logging on their lands. The Topo people, who live in Nabire, make similar complaints.

“To substitute, the people have to pay 50 cents a kilo for rice. For a family of five this means 22.70 dollars a month which is almost all the average local wage of 32.80 dollars,” he says.

Logging has also had an impact on local health. The Taja people who live close to this capital city of Irian Jaya, use some 100 kinds of plants for home remedies. Logging by Yon Lom Sari, a South Korean-Indonesian joint venture, has destroyed many of these plants, they say.

“Today our forests are taken by the companies, tomorrow our lands will also be taken,” Patay quotes a Mee elder saying. That view is shared by many of the indigenous communities from these forests who continue to fight the Indonesian timber companies.

In protest, Wooi people in Yapen chopped down a board put up by Yapen Utama Timber to prevent people from cultivating the deforested area.

But the army and the government have taken action to stop these protests.

Moi people of Sorong in the “Bird’s Head Peninsula” were jailed in September 1993 for protesting against logging by Intimpura, an Indonesian company; and Taja people were attacked by army troops when they uprooted trees planted by Yon Lim Sari.

Despite similar protests on other islands of Indonesia like the Moluccas and Sumatra, every year between one and 1.3 per cent of Indonesia’s forests are cleared.

Logging companies do pay a percentage of their income to the government for reforestation but some 20 million hectares have already been lost. These areas have become wastelands of “alang- alang” — a tough grass that prevents reforestation.

However, a mere four per cent of logged areas had been reforested by 1990.