The WWF Kalimantan Programme--Sizing up the Challenge
11/23/99
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Title: The WWF Kalimantan Programme--Sizing up the challenge
Source: WWF Indonesia / Kalimantan
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 23, 1999
Byline: Paul Kimman, pkimman@indo.net.id
The official of the Forest Ministry is shocked: "This is terrible" he
sighs. He's flying above West Kalimantan's landscapes, in a small
Cessna plane. This is his first visit to the province, and he's
looking down on vast stretches of barren lands covered with the
persistent alang-alang grass, shrubs and small patches of secondary
forests. His escorts are all too familiar with the sight. The
forestry official, however, was until then always under the
impression that Kalimantan was still largely covered with old growth
forests. Indeed, the island is so huge and its initial resources so
overwhelming, that one is inclined to think that they are
inexhaustible.
It's an example of how the Forest Ministry in Jakarta is working with
unreliable or even purposely selected information about the condition
of Indonesia's forests. This is partially a technical problem, but
much more a problem of an ineffective bureaucracy prone to
interference by the powerful timber-lobby, which thrives on false
information and shadow plays. The centralized government therefore
has never been able, and for some unwilling, to sufficiently manage
or control the country's forests, the forest concessionaires and
their exploitation of the forests, as well as any illegal
exploitation of the forests.
West Kalimantan is largely deforested, the most deforested province
on the island, which is the result of a decades-long stampede of
commercial and illegal loggers, a destabilized traditional system of
slash-and-burn cultivation, destructive gold-mining and the
indiscriminate development of large oil-palm estates. The remaining
forests are under heavy threat of being axed and burned as well, even
in the legally protected National Parks and Nature Reserves, where
the roaring sound of chainsaws rips apart the forest's characteristic
tranquil atmosphere.The story of West Kalimantan is or will very soon
be the story of the rest of Kalimantan. In Central Kalimantan, huge
tracts of the unique peat swamp forests are logged or are simply
levelled in attempts to develop agriculture and plantations schemes.
East Kalimantan is another bonanza for timber-barons and mining-
lords. Their only concern is invariably to maximize profits and
minimize costs, without heeding codes of conduct or regulatory
frameworks.
Crisis. No crisis ?
To try to do something about this is to fully understand and address
the complexity of why all this is happening. There's the lack of
public awareness of what is really happening and what the long-term
consequences of the unlimited exploitation will be. Government
authorities and private sector players distance themselves from
any accountability. Choking corruption turns everything upside down.
Hundreds of laws, government regulations, decrees, and their
amendments are often in contradiction with each other or
inconsistent. In many Provinces and Districts a sort of lawlessness
prevails, with no effective monitoring and law-enforcement systems in
place. Systems and techniques of planning and management are often
inappropriate. Development targets are focussed on making the buck,
not the sustainable society. And there still is not enough knowledge
about the actual biodiversity riches of the island.The recent
political explosion gives hope for a more positive future.
Nevertheless, the country is still in turmoil, waiting for the fall-
out to settle. How it settles, depends on who takes the initiative.
WWF Indonesia
WWF Indonesia is an organization that takes the initiative. It
understands that the only way to save the island's biodiversity is to
adopt a strategy on all fronts. The specific protection of single
species or Protected Areas is still needed, but no longer enough. The
conservation value of entire landscapes needs to be targeted,
combined with a focus on sustainable use of natural resources and the
development of human society. To become more effective, WWF
Indonesia adopted a new strategy and continued to reorganize itself
in 1998 into three Bioregional Offices. One of these offices, the
Sundaland Bioregion, is implementing the comprehensive Kalimantan
Programme.
The four fields of attention are: 1) Policies, institutional and
legal frameworks; 2) Awareness campaigning and education; 3) Planning
and Management of Landscapes & Natural Resources and 4) Improving the
knowledge of biodiversity and ecological processes.
Networking
To conserve the remaining relatively unfragmented enclaves of
Borneo's unique biodiversity, vital and all-out action is needed
immediately to reverse the trend of degradation. It's fundamental to
raise general awareness, improve quality and application of
knowledge, secure commitment to change, and strengthen public support
and accountability towards conservation and sustainable resource
use.Therefore, WWF Indonesia is developing or contributing to
networks of partners and stakeholders, encouraging a combined effort
in all four fields of attention. WWF Indonesia traditionally
cooperated with academics, international institutions, and government
officials from the Conservation Department, but is now also working
or exchanging ideas with most other NGO's in the field, with
government officials from all relevant sectors, with private
companies and political parties. WWF Indonesia operates at grass-
roots as well as the highest political levels.