Letter: Don’t blame locals, Mr. Minister!

Published at The Jakarta Post

| Wed, 07/20/2011 10:29 PM

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan concluded: “Rampant illegal logging involving local communities” (www.thejakartapost.com, July 17).
Again the minister tries to blame local communities for his incapability to manage forests, which is the main responsibility of his ministry.
Here’s a flash back: In Central Kalimantan, prior to the introduction of the forest concession system in the early 1970s, transmigration program and private plantation estate in 1980s, we did not have any problems with illegal logging and forest destruction.
Local communities were living in harmony with the forest although local farmers opened small forest areas for limited
agricultural activities. But, following the activity, those farmers replanted opened land with commercial trees or products such as rubber, rattan, fruit trees, etc... for future cash saving, which also all amounts to forest rehabilitation.
One amazing thing done by local people is that they have engaged in forest rehabilitation without receiving a single rupiah in assistance from the government budget. From this perspective, we can conclude that local people have a high capability to rehabilitate forests with their own efforts and resources as well as without support from global-sponsored schemes like REDD+.
But on the other hand, since the introduction of forest concessions, and transmigration and plantation estates, forests in Central Kalimantan have experienced massive deforestation and degradation problems.
The government has also generated lucrative sources of money from those activities such as reforestation funds, export taxes, land tax, etc., and all those funds and taxes are managed by the central government and supposed to be partly used for forest rehabilitation activities, but it is hardly heard that government-led reforestation activities have succeeded on the ground, and they then try to find scapegoats for their failures by saying that deforestation, forest destruction and fires are all carried out by local communities.
I think it would be better for the minister to send preachers to his own department to preach instead of sending those preachers to local communities. I think his staff need this kind of preaching the most so that their morals and behavior improve.

Alue Dohong
Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan