INDONESIA: Logging Threat Looms Over Birds’ Paradise

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

JAYAPURA, Indonesia, Feb 10 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 would 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 would 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 (would 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 produced 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.