By James Balowski
Over the last few weeks, fires have again swept through Kalimantan and other parts of Indonesia, destroying thousands of hectares of rainforest and blanketing Singapore and Malaysia in a dense cloud of smoke and ash. Despite announcing a "maximum alert", the government seems resigned to watching it burn while hoping for an early start to the rainy season.
As in previous years, the government has attempted to shift the blame on to traditional slash-and-burn cultivation. But as more and more experts point the finger at large agricultural and timber companies clearing massive tracts of land for oil-palm and forest plantations, the excuse is starting to wear thin.
An August 13 Jakarta Post editorial lamented, "We draw little comfort from the government's threat to revoke the licenses of contractors who continue to set these fires". In the face of the yearly recurrence of such fires, "the nation appears to be completely helpless to prevent [them]".
The editorial stopped short of saying what most people already know: that the major stumbling block to enforcing existing regulations — inadequate though they are — is the link between forestry and plantation companies and cronies of President Suharto.
Starting in 1982, forest fires of this scale in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Java have become an almost annual event. In 1983, a fire in Kalimantan, perhaps the largest in human history, destroyed 3.7 million hectares of rainforest. In 1991, smoke and ash from fires blanketed Singapore, Malaysia and the Straits of Malacca, forcing Indonesia to call for international help.
This year, Indonesian forestry officials estimate that at least 16,000 hectares are ablaze in eight provinces in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Maluku. Many regions report dwindling water supplies, as Indonesia suffers the worst drought in five years. Fires covering 80,043 hectares have also broken out in 13 districts of East Timor.
Many flights have been cancelled due to lack of visibility from the air; on the ground, visibility has dropped in some places to as little as 50 metres. Vehicles are forced to drive with their headlights on, and pedestrians struggle to protect themselves by clutching wet towels over their faces.
Health experts believe that 20 million Indonesians are being directly exposed, resulting in nose and throat irritation, shortness of breath and gray, gritty mucus. Thousands of kilometres away, in parts of Malaysia and Singapore, people are being advised to wear surgical masks and stop exercising outdoors.
Forest fires of this magnitude are a recent phenomenon, coinciding with a rapid increase in logging and plantation activities begun in the early 1980s. In 1966, 82% of Indonesia's land mass was covered by primary forest; by 1982 this had shrunk to 68%. Recent satellite photographs indicate that forest cover — including timber plantations — is now down to about 55%.
One-third of Indonesia's land mass, around 64 million hectares, is devoted to commercial logging.
In the August 24 issue of Asiaweek, Emy Hafild, executive director of the Indonesian environmental NGO Walhi, made it clear who is to blame: "They burn 1000 hectares at a time, while shifting cultivators burn only a hectare at a time".
In a statement carried in the September 30, 1994, issue of Forum magazine, Hafild explained that annual land clearing by indigenous people is completed well before August, adding that indigenous people knew when to clear land and traditional techniques ensured that fires did not spread.
The statement added that the accumulation of branches and timber after logging creates "tinderboxes" during the dry season. Clear-felling also encourages the rapid growth of grasses, which become highly flammable during the dry season.
In 1996, Indonesia became the world's largest plywood exporter. More than 30% of concessions are controlled by 10 companies with close political links to the government.
A key player is Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, Indonesia's biggest timber tycoon and one of Suharto's closest business confidants. He first got involved in the forestry industry in 1972, when, with assistance from military contacts, he was given a 10% stake in a local subsidiary. He soon acquired the remaining 90% and went on to build the Kalimanis timber empire.
In the 1980s he founded the state-sanctioned Indonesian Plywood Association, which controls plywood exports. He is also head of the Indonesian Timber Society and the Indonesian Furniture Association.
For a number of years, Jakarta has been actively promoting the development of timber estates in combination with transmigration programs. Logging companies such as Hasan's are awarded government concessions to clear huge tracts of rainforest, which frees land for plantation companies to move in. These then have a ready supply of cheap labour, either from indigenous people deprived of their livelihood or from transmigrants.
The almost total destruction of Siberut Island off West Sumatra provides one of the worst examples of this kind of "mutually beneficial" linkage.
The Indonesian government has continued to insist that it does not have the funds to deal with the problem, yet the US$3 billion earned from timber exports each year lies unused in state banks.
Walhi is currently taking Suharto to court for approving a loan of over US$100 million from state reforestation funds — almost half of last year's reforestation revenue — to help build Hasan's PT Kiani Kertas paper and pulp plant in East Kalimantan.
A similar, but unsuccessful, suit was filed against Suharto in 1994 when US$190 million from reforestation funds was diverted, interest free, as a loan to the Nusantara Aircraft Industry, headed by another Suharto crony, technology and research minister B.J. Habibie.