trading away forest in indonesia
friends of the earth england, wales and
northern ireland and walhi/friends of the
earth indonesia
“This forest was previously used for
farming, hunting, collecting rattan,
fruits, timber from the forest, and fishing
in the streams. Now the forest is gone,
there are no animals to hunt.” Angkasa
villager, Indonesia (Human Rights Watch,
2003).
Indonesia contains 10% of the world's
remaining tropical forest cover, and is
home to many threatened species including
the Orangutan, the Sumatran tiger, the
Sumatran rhino and the Asian elephant.
Indonesia is also an important center of
genetic variation for tropical fruit trees,
including mango, breadfruit and durian, and
its forests store large quantities of
carbon.
Deforestation, forest degradation and
habitat fragmentation are significant
problems in Indonesia . More than 70% of
original frontier forests have been lost,
and over half of those that remain are
under threat. The rate of forest loss is
accelerating: the current deforestation
rate is 2.8 million hectares per year, 1.27
times the rate of five years ago, and
almost four times the rate in the
1980s.
root causes of forest loss
Although the causes of deforestation in
Indonesia are many and various, increased
export trade has played a key role.
Alongside population growth, political and
economic instability, climate factors and
increased agricultural production and
resettlement, inappropriate government
policies have promoted the unsustainable
expansion of forest industries. Forest
products trade doubled in 20 years from
about 0.3 billion cubic metres per year in
1980 to over 0.6 billion cubic metres in
2000.
The importance of international trade
has increased year by year. In 2001, the
export value of forest products, the
majority of which were harvested from
natural forests, accounted for US$4.45
billion, representing 10.2% of the total
value of Indonesian exports. Indonesia
exports a range of forest products to
countries including China , Japan , the
Republic of Korea , the United States and
the European Union. Logs from Indonesia are
also smuggled to international markets in
trading centres such as Malaysia ,
Singapore and China .
problematic plantations
Plantations have also become a major
source of wood supply for the Indonesian
forest industry. Large-scale plantation
owners have turned to the use of fire as a
cheap and easy means of clearing the land
in order to plant palm oil, rubber, and
other export crops. Natural forest fires
are rare in Indonesia , but the past decade
has seen an unprecedented increase in fires
resulting from human activity.
nama could turn bad to worse
The WTO's Non-Agricultural Market Access
negotiations (NAMA, see page 7) are likely
to lead to decreased tariffs in wood,
forest and paper products. In addition,
NAMA could lead to the removal of
legitimate national laws and regulations
related to wood products, which would
create further pressure on forest
resources.
The European Commission's 2005
Sustainability Impact Assessment of the
proposed WTO negotiations in the forest
sector states that: “ Indonesia 's forest
sector suffers from serious sustainability
problems. Trade liberalization, or almost
any measure that would increase the forest
products production from current levels,
would likely have primarily negative
sustainability impacts amplifying the
current negative trends.”
In Indonesia , the expansion of
exportoriented agriculture is also a major
cause of deforestation and forest
degradation. The negative impacts of
agricultural liberalization on forests are
pronounced, and according to some
assessments, could even exceed the impacts
of forest product liberalization.
