Source: The Asia Pacific Times Online, May 2008

Sounding environmentally friendly, the country’s president still allows open pit mining in protected forests

By Moritz Kleine-Brockhoff

Indonesia’s rain forest is the world’s second-largest carbon dioxide sink but it’s being rapidly destroyed. At a time when the price of raw materials is climbing steeply, the government regards protecting its investors as more important than protecting its forests. That’s although donor countries such as Germany just approved millions to help Indonesia protect its forests.

Our president had the power to stop mining in protected forests,” said Rully Symanda of Indonesia’s environmental protection alliance WALHI. “He did not. Nice speeches are followed by contradictory policy, influenced by the powerful mining lobby.” Symanda was still optimistic in December, because Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had given a wonderful speech then at the climate summit in Bali. “We are gathered here to fulfill the hopes of over six billion people,” Yudhoyono said. “Every nation must become part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

After Brazil, Indonesia has the world’s second-largest rain forest. Deforestation releases carbon dioxide, accounting for one-fourth of the global rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases. Therefore, making forests disappear is the second deadly sin against the Earth’s climate following the burning of fossil fuels. “Forests are our only option for carbon sinks,” Yudhoyono said to enthusiastic applause. “Those blessed with forests must do all they can to preserve and expand their forest cover.” Yet, only two months later, and away from the public eye, Yudhoyono allowed 13 firms to continue open pit mining in protected forests.

Yudhoyono’s Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro even told potential investors that, “We need a decree to include all mining firms. We will allow you to mine in productive and protected forests.” Yusgiantoro also announced a new policy. Earlier, companies that cut down trees and extracted natural resources had to plant trees elsewhere to compensate. Now a little money paid to the state is enough compensation – at about €150 for a hectare of destroyed rain forest. “Indonesian forests for sale: How low can we go,” asked Stevie Emilia, a commentator for the Jakarta Post newspaper. “Indonesia should be ashamed of itself,” said Siti Maemunah of the Mining Advocacy Network, a conservation group.

Environmental protection is regarded as a luxury in Indonesia. In a country where 120 million people, half the population, survive on less than $2 (€1.30) a day, economic development is the real priority. Trees are felled to make way for plantations, timber is exported or vanishes into the paper mills. Every year, in a sad world record, an area larger than Cyprus is cleared.

Still, there is good news. Deforestation rates have slowed, and in some places those who fell trees illegally are even being prosecuted. A total of 120 million hectares still stand, an area about the size of South Africa. Some parts of Indonesia have been declared nature preserves, and according to a 1999 law, open pit mining is actually forbidden there. But that ban was loosened in 2004 by then-president Megawati Sukarnoputri. She permitted 13 companies that had been granted mining concessions in protected forest areas before 1999 to continue operating there. Yudhoyono therefore defends his most recent decree with the argument that he simply extended an older decision by his predecessor, and that it applied only to the 13 companies already established in the area. These include mining giants like Freeport-McMoRan, a U.S. conglomerate that runs the largest gold mine in the world in the Papua province. The company is also Indonesia’s biggest taxpayer.

To be sure, Yudhoyono’s decree does not permit any new environmental degradation. In addition, the scope of logging necessary for mining operations is relatively small, compared to the needs of oil palm plantations. But environmental activist Rully Symanda sees a dire political sign in the decree and fears worse to come. “We expect a second decree in May that will, as announced by Minister Yusgiantoro, legalize additional open pit mining in the forests,” he said.

The debate in Indonesia has attracted little international attention. “I haven’t heard about it,” said the UN’s climate delegate Yvo de Boer in April while participating in the climate talks in Bangkok. A spokesperson for Germany’s Development and Cooperation Ministry (BMZ) said, “We are checking the available information.”

Forest protection is an important and sensitive topic in Berlin. The federal government had agreed in the past to provide €40 million to support Indonesia’s efforts at sustainable forest management and development, and projects have been carried out since the 1970s. But Berlin halted its support in 2001, citing in one of its reports “inadequate prosecution of those who commit offenses against the environment, threats against activists and journalists and the involvement of security forces in forest exploitation.”

Now that climate protection has grown in importance internationally, Germany wants to cooperate with Indonesia again. “With the world’s second-largest rain forest, the country is a partner one cannot ignore in helping to protect the climate,” the BMZ declared. At last years bilateral development talks, Germany and Indonesia entered into a strategic development partnership in climate protection. Berlin promised Jakarta an additional €49 million, more than half of it earmarked for forest protection projects and the remainder as co-financing for a national climate action plan. Germany is also contributing €10 million to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Poorer countries are to receive money for leaving their forests standing. “We must not lose another day when it comes to climate and forest protection,” German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said in Bali.

Does it irritate Berlin that Jakarta continues to permit mining in protected forests? “It is still too early to judge the plans of the Indonesian government,” a BMZ spokesperson cautiously said. Meanwhile, President Yudhoyono continues to make strong statements: “Climate change is a defining issue of our era,” he recently wrote in the International Herald Tribune, adding that, “Today’s leaders will be remembered by their actions on this issue.”

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