Indonesia's rich biodiversity can be best protected by improving people's welfare, especially the poor, since many studies have shown that the leading cause of deforestation in developing countries is poverty, a global NGO says.
"Globally, most deforestation is carried out by poor communities, not plantation companies. We found that only 7 percent of forest clearing is done for plantations," World Growth chairman Alan Oxley said Wednesday.
He was speaking at a ceremony to release World Growth's new report, titled Forestry and Biodiversity: A Healthy Report.
Oxley quoted a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), showing that globally between 70 and 80 percent of land clearing is done by poor people.
"Deforestation only contributes about 17 percent of global carbon emissions. A larger portion of the emissions are the result of burning fossil fuels," Oxley said.
He also cited another report by the FAO and a statement by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, which had consistently pointed out that the main cause of land clearing in developing countries was population pressures.
"Living standards need to be improved if poorer communities are to be freed from the need to cut down forests ... to survive," he said.
Communities stand to gain more economic benefits and governments will earn more from taxes through the development of company plantations and forestry-related industries, as opposed to individual farmers developing smaller plantations, he said.
"Major plantations create a lot of jobs and provide communities with an income. This is the only solution for reducing poverty which is the main cause of land clearing," Oxley said.
"Standard analysis by NGOs that plantations and large scale commercial forestry are the leading threat to biodiversity is wrong. The strategy to protect the biodiversity as advocated by Greenpeace and WWF, that is to stop development of plantations by Indonesia's largest pulp and paper companies, would have little effect.
"We see many campaigns by international NGOs in developed countries aim to politicize the issue of biodiversity rather than protect it," he said.
The World Growth report shows that the protection of biodiversity and endangered species requires concentrated and targeted strategies, such as the establishment of conservation zones and educating local people to respect local laws and conservation measures, Oxley said.
"We also found that large forestry companies in Indonesia are active in supporting such programs," he said.
He said the government, NGOs, companies and local communities should pursue collaborative work as the best way to protect biodiversity.
"But some NGOs preferred to chain themselves to efforts to gain publicity rather than make genuine conservation efforts.
"At a recent palm oil conservation conference in Malaysia, a top global NGO refused to join a collaborative effort to identify strategies to protect orangutans," he said.
