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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