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The ‘middle way’ in forest management
Deep in Kalimantan, amid a vast swath of tropical forest, the low hum of a single-cable winch dragging logs out of the forest one-by-one is accompanied by a cacophony from colorful hornbills in the canopy above
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D
eep in Kalimantan, amid a vast swath of tropical forest, the low hum of a single-cable winch dragging logs out of the forest one-by-one is accompanied by a cacophony from colorful hornbills in the canopy above.
This is the site of a well-managed logging concession. Foresters work to carefully remove marked legal and high-value timber from a selected site while leaving the other trees unharmed. The timber is fitted with barcodes to be tracked, processed, certified and sold in premium markets, with a share of the revenue going back to communities living in and around the area.
This does not represent the typical logging concession in Indonesia — but it could.
Indonesia is in the middle of an important discussion about the future of its vast forests. One year has already passed since a moratorium on new permits for primary and peatland forests was signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
This was a major step toward better and more-transparent forest management. Further, the government has formulated its ambitious Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI). However, a consensus on the environmental impacts of the MP3EI has not been reached, with the majority of opinions divided into two opposing camps. The conventional wisdom is that the two sides have no common ground on conservation and development issues.
Meanwhile, a new study published in Conservation Letters provides evidence that with smart forest management, logged tropical forests can maintain timber and jobs while retaining the majority of their plants, animals and stored carbon.
These findings provide support for an approach through which conservationists, the government and local communities can work with logging companies to implement well-managed logging programs that protect biodiversity as well as provide local communities with real economic benefits and opportunities.
Coming at a time when Indonesia’s forests are under greater threat than ever before, these findings confirm the importance of a “middle way” forward for conservation groups, governments, companies and local communities. With over 20 million hectares of forest designated for logging concessions in Indonesia, this is an opportunity that we cannot afford to ignore.
Another recent study reviewed over 100 scientific papers and concluded that selectively logged tropical forests maintain 85 to 100 percent of their biodiversity as well as over 70 percent of their stored carbon. This research does not challenge the conventional wisdom on the importance of conserving pristine areas, but rather points to the continuing value of logged forests for conservation purposes.
In this sense, logged forests should not simply be considered as degraded land that can be handed over to developers for conversion to plantations, but rather as land with a high conservation value.
Some conservationists consider working with loggers a Faustian choice. An increasing number of pragmatic conservationists, however, see new opportunities for conservation through alliances with loggers interested in best practices.
Along with retaining high levels of biodiversity, well-managed logging concessions can complement protected areas by providing economic incentives to protect forests from conversion to other land uses where full protection is not feasible.
Well-managed working forests can act as conservation buffers for areas with full protection status. With the right management, the study said that timber yields could be sustained, albeit at a lower timber volume than the first cut, such that the incentives to conserve working forests are maintained.
Given the potential of these concessions the government and conservationists must redouble their efforts to address the challenges in managing them to ensure their sustainability.
Efforts to improve forest management should be leveraged to improve tenure for forest dependent communities, including addressing land tenures issues, giving management rights to communities and supporting collaborative agreements between companies and communities.
In addition to reducing the impacts of logging on forests and sustaining the regeneration of native timber species, ensuring that forest-based communities with traditional land-use rights consent and benefit from commercial logging enterprises is an essential aspect of good forest management.
In support of this, a variety of studies have found that community-managed forests provide one of the most effective long-term strategies for forest protection.
Reduced impact logging and equitable resolution of tenure disputes between commercial concessionaires and local communities are a critical part of certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC); however, certification standards like FSC are important tools that have yet to be widely implemented in Indonesia.
Despite positive steps being made such as the implementation of the SVLK system which will establish a framework for tracking the legality of products across the archipelago, less than 1 percent of tropical forests have been certified as well-managed. With logging concessions covering about a quarter of the world’s remaining tropical forests, certification of good forest management is a critical conservation tool.
There has been a long history of conflict between conservationists and loggers. Yet logging companies, including everything from multinational corporations to community-managed logging operations, often share one fundamental interest with conservationists: Keeping forests as forests.
We in conservation need to move past ideology to constructive action. Practical, achievable, and large scale solutions that find a middle way are needed if we are to sustain a healthy biosphere. Our climate, forests, and forest-based communities depend upon it.
Wahjudi Wardojo is a senior advisor on international forest carbon policy for The Nature Conservancy in Jakarta. Bronson Griscom is director of forest carbon science for The Nature Conservancy in Washington, DC.
