Wood for Reconstruction. A problematic matter?

The Winding Road to Rebuilt Aceh
Source ; Conservation.or.id

The sun is shining in Banda Aceh. The Sultan Iskandar Muda airport that used to be –before the tsunami—deserted, have begun to crowd again. “Visiting Banda Aceh nowadays is similar to arriving in Ngurah Rai Airport Bali, since a lot of foreigners can be seen,” said a volunteer who just arrived in Banda Aceh. These foreigners are expatriates from various nations, most of them from international NGOs and humanitarian aids that are involved in rebuilding Aceh after the tsunami. These agencies work together to rebuild Aceh by building houses. The Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekontruksi Aceh dan Nias - BRR) targeted to build 75.000 houses and up to end of December 2006—according to BRR’s Head, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto and also stated in BRR’s report: One Year After the Tsunami (Satu Tahun Tsunami)— only 57.000 houses have been built and 22.000 are currently in progress.


As an impact of the reconstruction needs, processed wood will also be required in a large amount. According to WWF’s latest estimation, in order to rebuild Aceh 1, 5 -1, 6 million m³ logs are needed, and the wood requirement amounts 800.000-900.000 m³. From that amount, a very large amount of processed wood is needed and raised concern among environmentalists regarding where it will be sourced from. Even Professor Emil Salim questioned this reconstruction effort. “I want to inquire where the wood comes from,” asked Emil Salim during a meeting in Banda Aceh with the BRR and Banda Aceh’s Forestry Agency. Emil Salim’s concern is appropriate since he witnessed himself two years after the tsunami, several mountainous areas such as Aceh Tamiang and Gayo experienced landslides and floods that were quite severe. This showed that the land ecosystem in Aceh have been disturbed and making it more disaster prone.

The floods in NAD according to Wiratno, the Head of the Gunung Leuser National Park, are an accumulation of the severe Aceh forest destruction, including forests inside the national park. “The forest destruction has been going on for years without any efforts to overcome or halt it,” explained Wiratno. Due to this matter Wiratno must reevaluate all aspects related to spatial planning and national park boundaries. “A lot of areas in the national park are not clear and must be rearranged,” added Wiratno (see the Common Agenda interview for the Gunung Leuser National Park).



Illegal wood

After the tsunami, practically only one legal concession company operated in Aceh. But several concessions that have permits can not operate at that time since the governor, Abdullah Puteh, issued a logging moratorium. Thus making supply for construction wood harder to obtain. If not, the demand for reconstruction wood would have definitely triggered illegal wood trade. This encouraged WWF and CI to work together to promote the Timber for Aceh (TFA) program to provide assistance in order to prevent another catastrophe after the tsunami.

Working together with other NGOS, government, certified wood suppliers and BRR, the efforts to emphasize the importance of the TFA program initiative was successfully conducted. To further emphasize the importance, WWF and CI developed a pilot program that aims to assist the building of reconstruction houses more quickly but in a sustainable manner i.e. utilizing forest products that are managed sustainably.

This initiative have also received international and multilateral support for donators to directly donate wood bought outside Indonesia. This makes TFA the benchmark for environmental based development in Aceh.

WWF intensively have launched a practical document on Green Reconstruction in April 2005 to prepare sustainable development in Aceh’s reconstruction.

The TFA initiative have also been accepted by the donor community and related agencies; WWF-Indonesia was requested to actively participate in providing an alternative solution to overcome the wood problem they’re facing. Up to now there have been 480 m3 wood received from donations. Meanwhile 46.000 m3 wood imported by international NGOs have been used for reconstruction in Aceh and Nias. Currently the efforts are still carried out by several NGOs.



Threats

It is not an easy task to influence policies and the intentions of developers to rebuild Aceh using legal wood. Up to now according to Nana Firman, WWF Aceh Program Coordinator, there are still a lot of donations for Aceh coming from humanitarian aids which sources are not known, and can even come from illegal logging.

This situation is also confirmed by Affan Hanifah, NAD’s Forestry Agency Head, “We have implemented a lot of integrated operations to rebuild houses using illegal wood,” he said. To overcome this problem, the Forestry Agency admitted that it is getting out of hand even though they wanted optimal donations for the reconstruction of Aceh and Nias.

The illegal wood for reconstruction were proven not only coming from Aceh, but also from outside Aceh. Nana gave an example, a couple of months ago around 40.000 m ³ wood were confiscated due to the lack of official papersfor reconstruction in Aceh. After investigation, it turned out that the wood were results of illegal logging in Kalimantan, among other from Sebangau National Park. “The wood was confiscated and they had to pay US$ 5000. Just imagine the cost if they were held for months,” explained Nana about the problems in obtaining wood to rebuild Aceh. According to Nana, WWF through TFA have provided input to recommend purchase of certified wood, but the organization didn’t take it into concern since they assume purchasing wood from abroad would definitely cost more. Meanwhile the fact is they were actually trapped by illegal wood that cost them even more.

18 months after the tsunami in mid-2005, WWF, CI in cooperation with the BRR for Aceh-Nias and the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent (IFRC) – successfully facilitated the consultation forum called ‘Timber Marketplace’ in Medan, all the players of the post-tsunami reconstruction met together. The objective was to introduce them all and search for a solution to obtain wood, and at the same time share experience and learning from each institution in overcoming and facilitating appropriate wood supply.

This place serve as a learning ground on how wood donations can directly – professionally – be facilitated and shipped from abroad to Aceh. According to WWF, this effort indirectly saves the natural forests in Indonesia that keeps diminishing at an alarming rate. In implementing Timber for Aceh, AF&PA (American Forest & Paper Association is also involved. As NGOs, WWF and CI are not directly involved with every reconstruction actor who contact commercial wood entrepreneurs, but act as an “information house” that bridges the developer, logistical supplier and wood supplier altogether.

A long and winding road have been endured to provide reconstruction wood with the hope that the remaining Aceh forest can be sustained for our future generations. Besides that, also to prevent the Aceh Tamiang and tsunami disaster does not happen again.//Fachruddin Mangunjaya and Dede Suhendra

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Wood... between the needs and the sources

Interview: Legal and Environmentally Friendly Wood for Aceh
Conservation.id, 4 Jan 2008

The Tsunami on 24 Desember 2004 not only caused suffering, but also threats of future catastrophes when reconstruction is not conducted carefully. Almost 500.000 people lost their homes due to the tsunami. They currently live in barracks and refugee tents after they lost their homes. In order to rebuild Aceh, fresh wood is needed. The question is, where can the wood be obtained from when the forests in Aceh are more than sure not adequate enough?



To answer the above question, Conservation International and WWF cooperate together to develop an initiative to assist Aceh’s reconstruction by obtaining environmentally friendly wood. “The initiative is how to obtain these wood from outside Indonesia, from sources that are not only legal but also sustainable,” said Nana Firman, WWF Program Coordinator for Aceh. How this initiative works and how far is the progress to obtain sustainable wood, Fachruddin Mangunjaya from TROPIKA Indonesia interview with Nana Firman follows:

What is the estimated amount of timber need to rebuild Aceh and Nias?
The initial estimation by Greenomics was quite large, 4-8 million m³. But then again that was a rough estimation and conducted very quick and sudden. The figure was then reassessed and rechecked with BRR (Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency), and it was revised to around 1, 5 -1, 6 million m³ logs; thus the timber need is around 800.000-900.000 m³ or 860.000 m³ to be precise.

What are the efforts conducted to support rehabilitation through the Timber for Aceh program?
Timber For Aceh itself has two schemes. The first scheme is to obtain donated timber, donations from several companies or organizations in America. We worked together with partners in the US to obtain them. Up to now, we receieved 12 containers, each containing around 40 m ³. The other scheme is advocacy to Humanitarian Agencies. We explained the forest condition in Indonesia and that environmentally friendly timber is very hard to find environmentally friendly timber for Indonesia to all Humanitarian Agencies NGOs. We also explained to them the condition of timber companies in Indonesia, that usually the timber companies having certification in Indonesia already have commitments to export, and it is not easy to cancel their contract. They are not ready yet to shift their sales to Aceh to fulfill sudden needs.

We heard from one of the timber suppliers that the imported timber is categorized as temperate wood and not suitable for the tropics. How do you comment on this?
Actually all of it depends on the treatment. If treated well, the timber can be very useful. Unfortunately a lot of humanitarian NGOs have subcontracts with suppliers. Suppliers usually seek a profits. They usually say: ’We do not know how the treatment is if we use imported timber’, they only want the easy way out. We experienced some problems in the beginning since there are no clear policies on it, there were policy dualism at that time. Since the BRR supported it, the Minister of Forestry confused a lot of people abroad. They were afraid to import timber since they though it was forbidden, meanwhile the fact is if it is in the form of donation, it is allowed. The donations are financial transactions not done in Indonesia, and is done for reconstruction. But the dualism during the beginning caused some problems for Timber For Aceh to move forward.

After two years, how is the progress so far?
The need for timber still remains the main difficulty. We are currently trying out the timber market place for all parties to meet and emphasize there is “no excuse” anymore. We even invited financial institutions, since there are different terms of payments between timber importers and humanitarian NGOs. For importers, as soon as the timber is sent, the money is directly transferred. Meanwhile for humanitarian NGOs, the timber must arrive first then the money is transferred; thus a financial institution is needed to settle the differences. After the timber market place, there is also a MoU sponsored by the Australian government, between the Australian Timber consortium with BRR – stating that the consortium will supply timber to Aceh, supported by the Common World Bank - Australia. The Common World Bank acknowledged the financial problems faced by international NGOs.

Is there a tendency that the local entrepreneurs still favors the black market?
Yes, there are still a lot. For example, a couple of months ago for around 10.000 or 40.000 m³. We have provided input to set-up international buildings, we already assisted them with several international timber companies but eventually they cut them off. Why? According to them due to the large funds needed. They decided to log domestic timber instead. They bought timber from Kalimantan, and it turned out that most of the timber came from Sebangau National Park. The timber was detained, and they have to pay US$ 5000 daily. If it’s detained for months, just multiply the amount. In the end they considered to import timber instead, everything is clear: guarantee, price and quality. So they are to blame themselves, we already suggested to open international buildings, but they persisted for timber from Indonesia.

We heard that the European wood markets already possess large shares, and there are publications that even though forests in Indonesia are fading away but forests in Europe are still intact?
This is due to their sustainability now. They shifted towards sustainability on their on conscious, meanwhile we don’t think about sustainability at all. We never think about the future generations, all we think about is ourselves right now and today. As for tomorrow, that’s for the future generations to deal with it, what does it have to do with us? This is the wrong mindset, and must be changed. If this is the way we think, we will not consider sustainability at all, since all we think about is the benefits that we can obtain today. We must change this mind set, and this needs time to take effect.

To overcome the above issues, what should be done?
The TFA program must be accompanied by awareness and socialization activities. All stakeholders should also be assessed. We usually approach humanitarian aids aggressively, but we also need support from the community.

Is there still of public awareness needed to be done?
I heard recently a lot of agencies and vice regent questioning why do we have to import wood? Why ban logging? We even have to use imported wood for caskets? It’s mind-boggling if they think like that. They just see it through a narrow perspective: why import wood, why ban logging? When in fact the essence is in a much broader meaning; not ban logging entirely, but do it sustainably. So there are rules which ones can be cut, which ones can not, that’s what’s needed to be fully understood…….not that everything should be allowed …*** ()

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