Indonesia Tells Forest Body to Reject Timber Bans

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

3/3/96

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

The following Reuters release illustrates Indonesia's

continued obstructionist policy on international attempts to

negotiate sound forest policies. The World Commission on

Forests and Sustainable Development is currently meeting,

and reported last month that 15 million hectares (37

million acres) of tropical forests disappear every year.

Nations should have the right to bar importation of clearly

unsustainably produced timber products. Timber labeling

concerning harvest methods; and banning of timber harvested

industrially and unsustainably, is clearly necessary to stem

the worldwide forest crisis. What we get in the following

article is the usual economic mumbo-jumbo response that

"Unilateral moves to ban, boycott or restrict the use of

tropical timber will take the value away from tropical

forests and thereby increase the pressure on tropical

forests by converting them to other more economical land

uses." As if no one would value those forests if they

weren't cut down. This said, clearly the developed and rich

countries must be willing to pay the developing countries to

forgo the industrial forestry option.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Subject: Indonesia tells forest body to reject timber bans

Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996

JAKARTA, March 3 (Reuter) - Indonesia told an international

commission set up to preserve the world's forests that they

would not be protected by unilateral bans on importing

tropical timber.

Opening Sunday's inaugural session of the Asian public

hearing of World Commission on Forests and Sustainable

Development, Indonesian Forestry Minister Djamaluddin

Soeryohadikusomo said unilateral bans would instead promote

the destruction of forests.

"It is important to note that value-added generated from

product processing and unhindered international trade in

timber are important...to combat deforestation by enhancing

higher economic value of forest products," Djamaluddin said.

"Unilateral moves to ban, boycott or restrict the use of

tropical timber will take the value away from tropical

forests and thereby increase the pressure on tropical

forests by converting them to other more economical land

uses," he said.

"Therefore, environmental considerations should not be used

as a sole decisive criterion or as conditionality in the

forest products international trade."

The Commission said last month that 15 million hectares (37

million acres) of tropical forests disappear every year,

causing economic and environmental damage in developing

nations.

Commission Co-chairman Ola Ullsten said on Sunday that

forests had the greatest affect on the global environment.

"Thus we all have a stake in the world's forests, whereever

it grows and where ever we live," Ullsten, a former Swedish

Prime Minister, told the opening session.

The Commission hearing began on Saturday with a series of

small discussion groups before proceeding on Sunday to the

more formal public hearing where evidence from forest

industry, government, indigenous people and activists was

heard.

Ullsten said the commission, founded after the 1992 Rio

Earth Summit, was seeking to increase awareness of the role

of forests, gain consensus on data about them and build

North-South cooperation on forest management.

Djamaluddin said in his keynote speech that without

appropriate valuation of forest products, many developing

countries would have difficulty in achieving sustainable

management of their resources.

"Their ability to plough back enough money to finance the

sustainable management programmes will depend largely on the

revenue generated from forest products in international

trade," he said.

"Therefore, consumer countries and the donor community

should not continue to overlook these countries needs for

both market access and additional financing."

Djamaluddin said moves to substitute aluminium, plastic,

steel and concrete for timber and forest products had

adverse consequences.

"Such products are not only non-renewable but are also

characterised by high energy demand and are environmentally

unfriendlier when compared to timber products," he said.

Forest products, in particular plywood, valued at more than

$4 billion annually are the biggest non-oil export of

Indonesia, a sprawling tropical archipelago with massive

forest reserves on its islands of Kalimantan, Sumatra and

Irian Jaya.

The public hearing is the first of a number planned by the

Commission in Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Ullsten said the body hoped to publish a report in 1997.

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