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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