An aerial shot taken last year shows a massive oil palm plantation (left) beside shrinking natural forest cover in Central Kalimantan. Reports of the stripping of forests come even as lawmakers remain deadlocked over how to preserve them. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
JAKARTA: Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry said illegal logging, land clearance, forest fires and mining have devastated Kalimantan and cost the country an estimated 311.4 trillion rupiah (S$44.5 billion).
A forestry official was quoted on The Jakarta Globe website yesterday as saying that 1,236 mining firms and 537 oil palm plantation companies were operating illegally in Central, East and West Kalimantan.
These provinces are located in the Indonesian half of Borneo.
Reports of the stripping of forests come even as Jakarta lawmakers continue to be deadlocked over how to preserve them.
Mr Raffles Panjaitan, director of forest investigation and protection at the ministry, said companies had caused losses put at 158.5 trillion rupiah in Central Kalimantan, 31.5 trillion rupiah in East Kalimantan and 121.4 trillion rupiah in West Kalimantan.
He said the figures for the number of companies were supplied by district heads and governors.
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hassan said the names of the companies, which include a number of large operations with thousands of hectares of concessions, were not being released yet.
They are still under investigation by the ministry and a task force that is working to reduce corruption in Indonesia, he was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe.
A key aspect of the investigation zooms in on alleged abuses by the authorities in the issue of licences.
Apart from the alleged rampant abuse, the stripping of Kalimantan's forests is worrying on another front.
Lawmakers in Jakarta continue to bicker into a fourth month over a moratorium on cutting down trees.
Bureaucratic inefficiencies have also been added to the issue, with two drafts of the moratorium being shoved around by different ministries.
The moratorium was part of a deal with Norway which pledged US$1 billion (S$1.2 billion) last year to help Indonesia reduce carbon emissions.
In return for the funds, Jakarta agreed to stop issuing new concessions to forest areas for two years and cut carbon emissions by 26 per cent by 2020, or by 41 per cent with international support.
But the plans have become bogged down in politics, with parties remaining deadlocked over several points in the moratorium. These include the definition of what constitutes forest area and peatland, and whether the new task force would be given authority over forest management.
To complicate matters, the task force members also sought input from civil society groups, researchers, scientists and private sector players such as investors.
Some environmentalists have dismissed the current debate as meaningless. A Greenpeace report claimed both drafts still leave 45 million ha of natural forest and peatland unprotected - an area almost twice the size of Britain.
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