Why We So Desperately Need Sustainable Forestry A Preview of What's to Come
Indonesian Fires are a Global Environmental Disaster

Over the past several months, fires in Indonesia burned 1.85 million acres of forest. A vast blanket of smog enveloped more than half of south-east Asia. 80% of the fires were set by big forestry and plantation firms systematically clearing land. 20% of the damage was from traditional slash and burn techniques employed on small farms. This man-made disaster is worse than Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island or the Exxon Valdez.

The Sydney Morning Herald (10/6/97) stated it eloquently. "The forests which once humbled humankind are now broken and burning. As the world awakens to an ecological disaster in south-east Asia, the naivete of those who trusted in the permanence of nature - and the conceit and greed of those who challenged it - is being laid bare."

This frightening and terribly sad situation clearly illustrates the link between environment, health and the economy. The government of Indonesia finally revoked logging licenses of 29 timber firms implicated in the fires. The official Antara news agency said the move followed an ultimatum to 176 companies to account for their actions after satellite data images showed so-called fire hotspots on land licensed to the firms. The deadline expired and 151 licenses held by 29 companies were revoked.

Backdrop: How It Happened
For the past 20 years, the rainforests of Southeast Asia have been subjected to unprecedented industrial rainforest harvest. Tremendous fortunes, political clout and short-term economic advancement have been achieved through a virtual mining of rainforest ecosystems in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere.

Not too long ago, the tropical canopy of Borneo was so dense that the tree-tops looked like smooth fields of grass. It rained almost every day - so moist was the forest, a fire could be no threat.

Now Asia's lungs, laid open by decades of rampant logging, are ablaze, and tens of millions of people are choking in vast clouds of smog. And it is not just the great trees which are burning - the land itself is on fire. Tens of thousands of hectares of rainforest peat, the most important natural element in fighting greenhouse carbon gases, have been ignited and face permanent destruction. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Forest fires of this magnitude coincide with a rapid increase in logging and plantation activities which began in the early 1980s. In 1966, 82% of Indonesia's land mass was covered by primary forest. By 1982 this had shrunk to 68%, and recent satellite photographs indicate that forest cover - including timber plantations - is now down to about 55%. Around 64 million hectares - one-third of Indonesia's land mass - is devoted to commercial logging.

Months ago, tiny red dots - raging fires with columns of thick, black smoke - appeared on World Meteorological Organisation satellite maps. Most Indonesians thought the fires were business as usual - fire is the common method used to clear scrub, grassland and logged-over forests to make way for plantations of palm oil, eucalyptus, acacia and rubber trees. Every year, hundreds of thousands of hectares of virgin tropical forest are sacrificed for economic activity. The monsoon rains always arrive to put out the flames.

At the Indonesian Government's Agency for Environmental Impact Control, experts knew the El Nin~o forecast meant that drought was coming. One official said, "We sent warnings to all our regional offices. We asked them to tell the plantations and the farmers not to burn. But they did."

Within months, thousands of fires raged. A thick, poisonous smog blocked the sun for weeks. The Indonesian Government announced that 20 million people were facing health risks. People were choking as the forest, and the animals and plants within, went up in smoke. By the way, Indonesia has no air pollution monitoring equipment and provides no public information on air conditions. No rain yet.

The plight for indigenous communities living within the forests is hidden... for the moment.

Soap, Margarine, Cooking Oil Replace Virgin Forest
Palm oil's price is rising internationally, and the Indonesian Government wants to cash in. By 2000, Indonesia wants to double its area under palm oil cultivation to 5.5 million hectares. This means clearing virgin forest.

A ban on burning forest to clear land for plantations has been in place since 1995, but burning is the cheapest and quickest way. Land allocated for plantations is classified as "conversion forest"; it has already been logged by timber companies. Remaining trees are cut and sold, then the brush and debris are burned. 300,000 hectares of virgin rainforest were approved for "conversion" in 1997. Indonesian reforestation laws allows planting palm oil or rubber trees as "replanting" virgin forest.

Precious tropical hardwood is turned into virtual garbage. Indonesia is the world's largest plywood exporter, largely used in Japanese construction sites as a disposable mold for concrete. About 10% of Indonesia's plywood comes to North America, used in construction and cheap shelving. The plywood trade is a cartel controlled by Mohamad (Bob) Hasan, a billionaire who is President Suharto's golf partner.

The Government vows to prosecute the companies that set the fires, but their record is not promising. Loggers pay local forestry officials to look the other way, and powerful friends of the Suharto family have few legal problems. Even in the midst of international outcry over forest clearance and air pollution the Government opened 1.7 million hectares of virgin forest in Sabah to commercial logging!

Malaysian environmentalists estimate that local industry and traffic generate a third of the smog. Yet in 1994 the Malaysian Cabinet threw out a "Clean Air Action Plan" to control industrial air pollution. It impeded Malaysia's targets for economic growth. A New York Times editorial (9/27/97) pointed out, "Asia's leaders should now realize that growth is fleeting when based on the wanton destruction of natural resources."

It Doesn't End Here
Although El Nino is certainly contributing to the late rains, rainfall itself is reduced by the loss of forest cover. Forest cover also absorbs rain and acts as a water catchment. Clearing causes rivers to run fast and early, leading to erosion and quick drying up.

Rainforests are one of the wettest places on earth. Even in a drought, there is little to feed a fire. Scientists speculated that El Nino is getting worse because deforestation and the subsequent erosion are affecting air currents over surface water in coastal areas of Asia.

The smoke releases minute particles into the atmosphere. For breathing people and animals, particles penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream, and, at much smaller levels of exposure, cause respiratory and cardio-vascular disease, heighten cancer risks and increase birth defects. "How many people will fall sick and die in later years is the million-dollar question," says the head of the World Health Organisation in Kuala Lumpur, Dr Hishashi Ogawa.

The fires will add significantly to global warming. They have released the equivalent of half of Indonesia's normal annual production of carbon dioxide.

1 million hectares of peat forests may burn for decades. If only the top 10 centimetres burned, an additional 20 million tonnes of CO2 would be released into the air. Peat fires can burn deep underground for years. Firefighters have to dig around a site to locate smoldering peat layers, then use sand to put them out. Every blackened log and stone must be turned over to make sure that embers are not hidden underneath.

Smoke cuts down light, reducing photosynthesis, which drives plant growth and powers the entire ecological system. When rains do finally arrive, increased sediment loads due to reduced plant cover will be carried far out to sea, suffocating coral and blocking out vital light. When the ash is washed into rivers, it will clog them, producing a clear risk of flooding.

Bees are feeding less, which means they pollinate fewer trees and plants - and that means less food for fruit-eaters and herbivores. As insect numbers decline, so do the birds and reptiles which feed on them, affecting the entire food chain. Amphibians, which will suffer a dry season made worse by drought, will be especially vulnerable.

Larger animals are also at risk. Primates, such as the orangutan, are especially vulnerable because, unlike four-footed animals, they are slower and need trees to move through forest to escape the fires.

Reduced sunlight affects crops. The haze hampers the ripening of fruits; traders and commodity associations say it is already affecting coffee and cocoa production and disrupting transportation. Fishing boats in Sarawak have been advised not to put out to sea, and Thais are complaining that poor visibility is hampering fishing in t he Andaman Sea.

The tourist industry is taking a beating, resorts throughout the region reporting reduced occupancy levels. Resorts as far north as the Thai island of Phuket, 1400 kilometres from the nearest fires, are enveloped by grimy smog.

Perhaps the only ones to find a silver lining in the disaster are manufacturers and distributors of household air purifiers and surgical masks. In Indonesia, the price of masks has soared from 500 rupiah (16 cents) to 4000 rupiah.

Solutions
Will these tragic fires persuade Southeast Asia and the nations that import their products to take forest protection seriously? 88% of the forests are gone in Asia. The United States should ban tropical plywood, or require country-of-origin labeling on wood products so consumers can refuse to buy them. Japan needs to rethink its import policies. Unfortunately, there is too much money to be made by powerful people in Southeast Asia; it is market pressure from purchasing countries that will force a change in their environmental practices.

The last great forest expanses and critical global ecosystems of Brazil, Africa, Russia, Papua New Guinea, and Canada are open to similar abuse. Pakistan and Thailand lose 4% of their forests every year, and may be completely denuded in 15 years, creating semidesert conditions. The situation is similar in Nigeria and Ivory Coast in Africa, and in the Latin American nations of Paraguay and Uruguay.

"It's a chilling situation with terrible poverty, terrible soil erosion, completely unstable agriculture, widespread flooding and, of course, a terrible impact on wildlife populations," says a spokesperson for the World Wildlife Fund.

Nations must preserve or restore at least 10 percent of their native woodland before it disappears completely, according to the WWF.

For more information:
http://www.noord.bart.nl/~edcolijn/fires.html
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/2701/haze.htm
http://www.worldwildlife.org/new/fires/home.htm
The Gaia Forest Conservation Archives Indonesian directory has several dozen articles: http://forests.org/forests/indonesia.html

Sources: The Gallon Letter
Worldwide Forest/Biodiversity Campaign News
Green Left Weekly, October 15 greenleft@peg.apc.org
Sydney Morning Herald, 10/6/97