The Timber Industry
Timber has played a significant role in Indonesia's economic development and continues to be the country's second most valuable exports trailing behind oil. In 1987, Indonesia exported more than US$1.7 billion worth of plywood. Timber exports have been going downhill since the ban on logs was implemented in 1980, when revenues well exceeded US$2 billion. During the boom of the 1970s, the timber industry was characterised by large multi-national corporations linking with local firms to export logs. Today, the emphasis is shifted to plywood, with foreign joint ventures accounting for less than 20% of production, due to the government's change of policy, banning log exports in favour of plywood. The Forestry Ministry summarised their current policy on timber resources as to maintain supply of raw materials for forestry industry and to enhance the value of forest products through local processing.
In 1985, the Forest Department classified 64 million hectares as production forests, of which 53.4 million hectares was designated under timber concessions. Only 521 companies held these concessions, creating an intense concentration of political control over more than 25% of Indonesia's land area. The World Bank estimated that: "At the current annual level of earning from commercial production, Indonesia's forests will be exhausted in 40 years' time. The factors causing this trend include careless logging practices."
Left: An adventurer ventures into the depths of the forest. However, who can guarantee the survival of this greenery with the booming timber industry? Source: Lian He Zao Bao, a Chinese newspapers
Timber Extraction and Management
The Indonesian government regulates timber extraction by demanding any logging in areas that should remain forest must adhere to the TPI (Tebang Polih Indonesia) selective felling system. The regulations are a guideline and all companies must also conform to the laws outlined. Only trees over 50cm at breast height can be cut. At least 25 trees of 25-49cm at breast height must be left intact on each hectare logged. If less than 25 trees are left, enrichment planting should take place, otherwise natural regeneration was relied upon. The cutting cycle was stipulated as 35 years, by which the forest should theoretically have fully recovered. This system, even if applied, which is not, has some basic weaknesses, as an IIED report noted:
There now appears good reasons to believe that many assumptions which form the basis of this system may be incorrect. For instance, many trees do not continue to grow or become stimulated to enhanced growth as result of opening the forest canopy through harvesting. In addition, scientists do not fully understand the role and effectiveness of "mother" trees and the need to conserve the untouched forested areas in the production forest. It also assumes that the forest physiology and response to disturbance is similar throughout the forests of Indonesia, whereas there are actually many different forest types.
Despite the regulations, the government applied the system in the spirit of the Pancasila principles, and concession holders were rarely checked to see if they conformed to the regulations. Any violation of rules will incur a levy of US$4 for every cubic metres of timber extracted, but returnable if they stayed within the system. They hope that this could attract re-investment in the industry. However, most foreign companies would prefer to view the levy as a direct cost rather than an incentive for re-investment. This relaxed approach taken by the government has led to the serious damage by timber extraction to approximately 23 million hectares of Indonesian forests. Indonesia's largest environmental group, SKEPHI, estimate the total seriously damaged forested areas is close to 43 million hectares, inclusive of transmigration sites.
It is evident that this system had been abused. In early 1980s, two scientists from the Weyerhauser Corporation studied nine concessions in East Kalimantan and noted that none of them left the required 25 trees per hectares and on much of the area, there were insufficient trees in the beginning to comply with the regulations. Logging in East Kalimantan is intense with up to 20 trees being extracted per hectare. SKEPHI reported that in this state where bulldozers are used, 50% of the forest is totally destroyed during selective logging, and after 15 years of extraction, about 70% of the forest canopy is opened.
Only 4 out of Indonesia's 4000 tree species account for 75% of the exports by volume, and they are Meranti, Ramin, Keruing, and Agathis. Pressure on these species is considerable and the discovery of a dense strand will definitely lead to the temptation to over-cut. In Sumatra, a spot survey by the WWF on the Padang-Sulihan reserve found that only 4% of the logs measured outside the local timber mills fits complied with the legal rules. The Forest Research Institute in Java recently reported that on logging sites for Meranti in Sumatra, up to 70% of the non-target trees were damaged during extraction, and 52% of the damaged trees were commercial species.
Even logs felled are wasted. SKEPHI estimates that 50% of the logs felled never reached the sawmill. This wastage was further confirmed by the Forest Research Institute that estimates that more than 30% of the Meranti logs felled in this, and 80% of these damaged logs are dragged to the depots where they were left to rot. They estimate 5.6 million cubic metres of timber were wasted in this way throughout the 1970s. The damage and waste caused by careless logging as a permanent effect on many areas, and the commercially valuable species re-generated very poorly.
George Additondro of the Pedanan Development Project Information Centre in Jayapura, Irian Jaya, wrote an excellent description of logging on the outer islands in an article for the Tokyo-based magazine, Kogui. Following is the extract from that article.
Based on observations in Kalimantan, you can easily say that the very initial steps for preparing the logging operation already destroy a substantial part of the forest. This is because many companies in Kalimantan, or you can safely speak of the whole of the country since the Minister for Environmental Control discovered the same practice widespread in Sumatra, prefer the yarding technique. By locating the highest point on the banks of a valley, the loggers can easily cut all the mature commercial trees around it and then pull up the logs to the highest hill by means of a steel cable network.
They first have to locate the valley with the most valuable trees and the hill to serve as a log terminal. This cruising operation is done by tractors that just push their way through the dense forests. After the cruising team has located the right hill close to the right valley, the road-building tam starts to build semi-permanent logging roads according to the landscape, but sometimes not hesitating to explode a hill or mountain slope to make the road shorter or easier. These roads are just sandy, hardened with gravel to enable heavy-duty logging trucks to pass. Tree planting is usually avoided along the roadside so that the sunshine can dry it up after heavy showers, which are very common. Sometimes, as a way of window-dressing, logging companies plant quick-yielding trees along the road to give a "good impression" to the green inspector.
Once the suitable hill has been found, all trees and shrubs will be cut to leave a tall, big tree to serve as a fulcrum pole to pull up the logs cut all around the valley banks. The trees are cut down by chainsaws and then attached to the steel cables and pulled up to the log pool, swinging and striking other trees along their paths. Using the yarding technique, loggers can easily cut trees in slopes with a more than 25% inclination, which is actually prohibited.
With the popular technique, logging can be done very fast and extensively. In the Soriano Brothers timber concession in East Kalimantan with an area of 1.2 million hectares, I once saw a double-pole yarding process going on. After ten years adopting this technique all over the archipelago, the Minister for Environmental Control has declared it to be just "harmful" but no regulation to prohibit yarding has been issued up to this moment.
That report from 1979 is still relevant because the situation at ground level has remained the same.