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INDONESIA: Private Management, New Threat to Biodiversity

Kaifl Yamin

GORONTALO,Indonesia, Aug 17 2005 (IPS) - To say that the babi rusa (pig deer) is ugly is to state the obvious. But the health of this repulsive species of wild boar is an indicator of Sulawesi island’s rich and unique bio-diversity threatened by loggers, bush meat hunters, settlers, tourists and lately private administration.

Many see the trend towards private party administration in Sulawesi island, at the eastern edge of the Indonesian archipelago, as the latest threat to one of world’s last great repositories of rare fauna and flora rather than a means of protecting it.

”If this (private administration) happens then nature’s wealth is at stake,” Ani Kartika Sari, an international consultant for biodiversity from the Canterbury-based, Lincoln University in New Zealand, told IPS.

Sulawesi owes its unique mix of flora and fauna to the fact that it was created some 15 million years ago through a tectonic event which caused part of the Australian plate to crash into the Asian plate – with plants and animals from both worlds riding on them.

In the transitional zone that is Sulawesi, live the anoa, a buffalo species that is no larger than a goat, marsupials and several unique species of macaques, reptiles and birds that are found nowhere else according to the lists of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species.

Gorontalo province, situated in the northern part of the island, alone has five nature reserves, one national park and other conservation areas, but these vast areas are served by three rangers and two administration staff members of the provincial Conservation Body.

Bordering central Sulawesi and north Sulawesi provinces, Gorontalo also has a population of close to 900,000 people living around the nature reserves of Banua, Tanjung Payung, Tanggaleh, Pulomas Popaya Raya and Nantu covering close to 50,000 hectares – although the boundaries are not well defined.

Additionally, there is the Bogani Nani Watabone national park which measures 40,000 hectares. Pressure on this vast biodiversity- rich area has been intensifying in recent times through resettlements, agricultural estates and tourism sites.

Sulawesi’s thick forest areas have rapidly and quite visibly turned into secondary forests as a result of overlogging by forest concessionaires, with covert support from the military.

Although the cleared lands belong to the state, they have been steadily attracting settlers who build houses or do farming unhindered by the understaffed and underpaid administration.

”If no improvement is made in administrative capability, then losing all this unique wealth is only a matter of time,” said Arie Budiman, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Science.

The Nantu Nature Reserve presents an obvious example of the incapacity of local administration and is now under the joint management of the London-based Darwin Initiative and a local partner, the International Adudu Nantu Foundation.

Nantu is the main habitat of the babi rusa and the anoa. ”If Nantu is destroyed, Sulawesi will nothing left. Not only Sulawesi and Indonesia but the whole world will lose precious heritage,” said the British scientist, Lynn Clayton who is chairperson of the Darwin Initiative.

The construction of resettlement sites is frustrating for Lynn. “The resettlement will attract people to come and make a living in this area. And this forest will be trampled,” she said.

No single personnel from the state Conservation Body is assigned here. The area has been devoid of state control since it was reinstated as a nature reserve in 1999.

Said Syamsuddin Lanu, a staff member of the north Sulawesi Conservation Body: ”We have no people here. Our work area covers a territory of one province but we have only five people – three rangers and two administrative staff.”

Lanu said he had no idea of how people could be assigned to take care of a huge national park and five nature reserves. His office has no budget for monitoring, rehabilitating and protecting conservation areas.

The problem is not confined to Sulawesi. The Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan is also managed by the United States-based, Orangutan Foundation and despite frequent complaints of illegal logging, no official from either the local Forestry Office or Conservation Body is present there.

Green activists have been voicing demands for private management of the conservation areas due to government incapacity but critics say this can only worsen the current trend of foreign enterprises cornering forest concessions.

Although foreign companies – including British, South Korean, Finnish and Malaysian – must enter into local partnership, many of them are known to have interests in palm oil plantations and other forestry and agro businesses.

”After foreign companies have finished exploiting Indonesian forests it is the turn of international organisations to follow suit in the name of conservation and saving the planet,” said Ani .

Although private management is no guarantee of better forest protection and sustainability, Ani said the reality was that it was a better option than an absentee government.

At Nantu there are four police-military members on patrol duty but they are on the payroll of the Darwin Initiative. ”The foundation asks our force to guard this area, so they pay us,” said Uten Ibrahim, 27, a police-military officer.

The military presence in Nantu, says Uten, is effective. ”People do not go into the forest if they see us. They do not do any harm to the forest after we told them not to do it”.

But Ani said the military presence was far from ideal. ”People are supposed not to harm the forest because they are aware of the value of it, not because they are afraid of the military,” she added.

What is needed to foster right awareness is improvement in people’s income and a stake in the preservation of the forests. Villagers around the Nantu forest said they get money just to survive from tree felling and hunting.

”Yes I grow coffee and rice, but these crops take months to harvest. I need money today to support my family, so I go into the forest to cut the trees and hunt babi rusa,” said Kadua Lakea, a villager of Sari Tani village, located just next to the Nantu Nature Reserve.

”Many people go into the forest, cut trees or hunt the animals because they have no other sources of income. They would make quick money by cutting trees or selling the animals,” Kadua maintained.

Without economic improvement of the communities around the forests, conservation areas in Indonesia will not be safe. Budiman said people cannot be expected to think of conservation unless their basic needs are first met. ”They think if babi rusa or anoa become extinct, so what?”

”There will be more and more conservation concessions run by foreign foundations in Indonesia if the government does not make a quantum leap in improving its own people’s prosperity and strengthen commitments to sustainable development,” Budiman said.