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Articles

Forest resources and forestry in Indonesia

Pages 155-160 | Published online: 05 Jan 2012

Abstract

Forests serve as a dwelling place and source of livelihood for the people of Indonesia. This paper analyzed the forest resources and forestry in Indonesia. The forest area in Indonesia amounts to 137,090,468.18 ha consisting of 133,694,685.18 ha as terrestrial forest area and 3,395,783 ha as water area. Hard work by the Ministry of Forestry has succeeded in suppressing the average rate of forest degradation. For the purpose of enlarging the log production from natural production forest through the silvicultural system of TPTI (Indonesian Planting and Selection Cutting), an Intensive Silvicultural System has been introduced at 25 forest concessions with the total area of about 52,300 ha. On the other hand, owing to its geographical position in the Equator region between the Asian and Australian continents, Indonesian tropical forest possesses high biodiversity. Finally, to guarantee the local community's active participation in the sustainable forest management practice, the government has empowered the local communities that live within and surrounding the forest area through various programs, such as establishing community forest, village forest, conservation forest, production center of non-wood forest products, community-based forest management and an improvement program with forest concession companies. The government also introduced the General Service Agency for financial support for communities that want to establish a forest plantation.

Introduction

Indonesia is a tropical archipelago country consisting of various types of forest ecosystem spread from coastal into mountain areas. Indonesian forests are not only large in area size, but also high in biodiversity, therefore Indonesia is known as one of the mega-biodiversity countries in the tropical region.

About 48.8 million people of the Indonesian population live in or around the forest, of which 10.2 million people are categorized as poor community (Ministry of Forestry 2010). The number of people whose livelihood is directly from the forest is about 30 million, with lifestyles of shifting cultivation, fishing, hunting, gathering, tree felling, and selling wood and non-wood forest products (Nandika Citation2005), and about 3.4 million people work in the private forestry sector, in which about 205,300 people directly work in wood-processing industries (Ministry of Forestry 2010). Therefore, forests serve as dwelling places, sources of biodiversity and sources of livelihood for the people in Indonesia.

According to the latest information, the forest state concession area in Indonesia amounts to 136,730,390.98 ha consisting of 133,300,543.98 ha as the terrestrial forest areas and 3,429,847.00 ha as the water areas within the forest state concession areas (Directorate General of Forestry Planning, 2009 in Forestry Statistics of Indonesia, 2010). Within the last three years, the Indonesian forest underwent degradation with an average of about 1.08 million ha per year. It shows a decrease compared with the degradation rate in the last era of 1990s as large as 2.8 million ha on average. The forest degradation had resulted in critical land of about 30.19 million ha, in which 6.89 million ha is categorized as very critical land all over Indonesia (Ministry of Forestry, 2010), due to several causes, such as illegal logging, forest land encroachment, forest fire and natural disaster.

This paper analyzed the forest resources, forest rehabilitation and conservation, forest utilization and forest ecosystem diversity of Indonesia. Statistical data were collected and analyzed with a literature review.

Forest area in each province

According to Directorate General of Forestry Planning (2009) in Forestry Statistics of Indonesia (2010), the forest area in Indonesia amounts to 137,090,468.18 ha consisting of 133,694,685.18 ha as terrestrial forest area and 3,395,783 ha as water area ().

Table 1. Extent of forest area, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystem based on forestry ministerial decree on the designation of provincial forest area, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystem and forest land use by consensus.

Forest area stability

Until 2009, the Ministry of Forestry fix-signed the borderline of forest state-owned area as long as ±219,606 km. Legitimacy of the borderline was mainly executed for conservation forest, production forest and other areas with high potential conflict (Ministry of Forestry 2010). It was also reported that until 2007 there were many forest areas released for other sectors, such as transmigration (956,700 ha), estate (228,200 ha), also to be processed to release were about 698,230 ha. In 2008, technical consideration and deep observation was done for 30 locations of forest area for other sectors. Functional change of forest area has been done for eight locations and completing the release of forest area for other sectors using barter system has been done for 19 locations.

Forest rehabilitation

Until 2004, critical land in Indonesia was estimated as 30.19 million ha, in which about 6.89 million ha was categorized as highly critical land. It was reported that in the period from 2003 to 2008, the Ministry of Forestry succeeded in rehabilitating 906,969 ha of forest concession area, 1,102,912 ha outside of forest concession area, and 21,380 ha of mining over forest area. It was also stated that about 504.2 million seedlings have been planted in the public areas and 108.95 million seedlings planted in many locations through the “gerhan” program (Land and Forest Rehabilitation Campaign Program). Hard efforts of the Ministry of Forestry succeeded in suppressing the average of forest degradation rate to about 1.08 million ha for the last three years from its level of about 2.8 million ha in the 1990s.

Forest conservation

In order to maintain and protect the ecosystem and its biodiversity, until 2009, there were 527 units of marine and terrestrial conservation areas consisting of 50 units of National Park (16.33 million ha), 118 units of Nature Tourism Park (750,000 ha), 22 units of Grand Forest Park (344,000 ha), 14 units of Game Hunting Park (22,500 ha), 248 units of Natural Reserve (4.5 million ha), and 75 units of Wildlife Sanctuary (5.1 million ha). In terms of marine conservation area, until 2009 there were 7 units of National Park, 5 units of Natural Reserve, 2 units of Wildlife Sanctuary, and 14 units of Nature Tourism Park (Ministry of Forestry 2010). Totaled the forest conservation area is about 27.7 million ha (±20% of forest area in Indonesia).

Forest utilization

Based on the Forestry Law No. 41/1999, the forest utilization includes forest area utilization, environmental services, and harvesting as well as collecting woods and non-wood forest products. Until October 2010, there were 303 Natural Forest Concession Companies (24,625,842 ha), 23 Forest Plantation Companies (9,381,249 ha), 100 People Forest Plantations (629,157.73 ha), 23 Community Forests (10,310 ha) and 5 Village Forests (10,310 ha) as presented in .

Table 2. Recapitulation of the sum and acreage of Natural Forest Concession Companies (IUPHHK-HA) in each province in Indonesia.

Table 3. Recapitulation of the sum and acreage of Forest Plantation Companies (IUPHHK-HTI) in each province in Indonesia.

Table 4. Recapitulation of the sum and acreage of People Forest Plantation, Community Forest and Village Forest in each province in Indonesia.

It was reported that the average log production was about 8.07 million m3/year from natural production forest and about 15.77 million m3/year from forest plantation for the last five years. The log production from the natural production forest and forest plantation is presented in .

Figure 1. Log production from natural production forest and forest plantation in the period of 2004 to 2008.

Figure 1. Log production from natural production forest and forest plantation in the period of 2004 to 2008.

For the purpose of increasing log production from natural production forest through the silvicultural system of TPTI (Indonesian Planting and Selection Cutting), Intensive Silvicultural System (Silin or TPTII, Indonesian language) has been introduced at 25 forest concessions with a total area of about 52,300 ha. Besides, about 16,900 ha of log-over forest area have been rehabilitated through enrichment planting.

In 2008, there were 227 units of wood-processing industries where the averages of processed-wood productions in the year of 2008 were plywood 3,353,479 m3, veneer 427,257 m3, sawn-timber 530,688 m3, pulp 4,784,733 tons and chip-wood 278,320 m3. It was also reported that in 2008 the export volume of processed woods was 1,250,947 tons of plywood, 11,482 tons of veneer, 50,917 tons of sawn-timber, 4,244 tons of particleboard, 2,436,869 tons of pulp and 95,024 tons of chip-wood (Ministry of Forestry, 2010).

In 2003, wood-processing industries consisted of 1881 units which consisted of 1618 units of sawmills (with capacity of 11.05 million m3), 107 units of plymills (with capacity of 9.4 million m3), six units of pulpmills (with capacity of 3.9 million m3), 78 units of blockboard industries (with capacity of 2.1 million m3) and 73 units of other wood-processing industries (with capacity of 3.2 million m3). In the period from 2006 to 2008, there were 51 units of new licensed timber primary industries with the total permitted production capacity of about 5,349,301 m3 ().

Table 5. New licenses issued for timber primary industry with capacity >6000 m3/year in 2006–2008.

Forest ecosystem diversity

Being a tropical archipelagic country, Indonesia with about 17,504 islands (28 big islands and 17,475 small islands) and having around 95,181 km coastline (Kusmana, Citation2008) has diverse forest ecosystems which spread from the coast to the mountain area as high as about 4800 m. The main forest ecosystems in Indonesia are presented in .

Table 6. Main forest ecosystems in Indonesia.

Those forests mainly are distributed in seven main islands, such as Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Moluccas, Papua and Nusa Tenggara.

Owing to the geographical position in the equator region between Asia and Australia continents, Indonesian tropical forest possesses high biodiversity (flora and fauna), namely 515 species of mammals (12% of world mammals, first rank in the world), 511 species of reptiles (7.3% of world's reptiles, third rank in the world), 1531 species of birds (17% of world's birds, fourth rank in the world), 270 species of amphibians (fifth rank in the world), 121 species of butterflies (first rank in the world), 2837 species of invertebrates and 3800 species of plants (including 4000 species of trees) (Nandika Citation2005), although the land area size of Indonesia is only 1.3% of the surface of the earth.

Forest policy

For 5 years spanning from 2010 to 2014, the Ministry of Forestry Republic of Indonesia has determined eight priority policies of the forestry sector in order to maintain and improve forestry development sustainability. Those policies are as follows (Ministry of Forestry, 2010):

1.

Forest concession legitimacy.

2.

Forest rehabilitation and improvement of watersheds' carrying capacity.

3.

Forest guarding and forest fire controlling.

4.

Biodiversity conservation.

5.

Revitalization of forestry industry and forest utilization.

6.

Local community empowerment.

7.

Mitigation and adaptation for climate change.

8.

Strengthening capacity building of forestry sector.

Empowerment of local community relation to the forest area

There are 31,957 villages in and directly bordered with the forest state-owned area. This includes those distributed within the forest area (1305 villages), precisely bordered with forest area (7943 villages) and surrounding forest area (22,709 villages). To guarantee the local community's active participation in sustainable forest management practice, the government (c.q. Ministry of Forestry) has empowered the local communities living within and surrounding the forest area through various programs, such as establishing community forest, village forest, conservation forest, production center of non-wood forest products, community-based forest management and improvement program with forest concession companies. The government also introduced the General Service Agency for financial support for the community that wants to establish the forest plantation.

Conclusion

The forest area in Indonesia amounts to 137,090,468.18 ha consisting of 133,694,685.18 ha as terrestrial forest area and 3,395,783 ha as water area. Hard efforts of the Ministry of Forestry have succeeded in suppressing the average forest degradation rate. For the purpose of increasing log production from natural production forest through the silvicultural system of TPTI (Indonesian Planting and Selection Cutting), Intensive Silvicultural System has been introduced at 25 forest concessions with a total area of about 52,300 ha. On the other hand, owing to the geographical position in the Equator region between Asia and Australia continents, Indonesian tropical forest possesses high biodiversity. Finally, to guarantee the local communities' active participation in sustainable forest management practice, the government has empowered the local communities living within and surrounding the forest area through various programs, such as establishing community forest, village forest, conservation forest, production center of non-wood forest product, community based forest management and improvement program with forest concession companies. The government has also introduced the General Service Agency for financial support for communities that want to establish forest plantations.

Notes

1Paper presented at the International Symposium “Outcome and Prospect of Overseas Forestry”, 8–10 March 2011, by “Research Center for Korean Peninsula Forest Rehabilitation and International Forest Cooperation(INFOCO)” and Chungbuk National University, South Korea.

References

  • Forestry Statistics of Indonesia . 2010 . Ministry of Forestry of Republic Indonesia, Jakarta
  • Kartawinata , K . 2005 . Six decades of natural vegetation studies in Indonesia Naturindo Publications, Bogor , , Indonesia
  • Kusmana , C . 2008 . Urgensi Mangrove dalam Pengelolaan Ekosistem Pesisir Kornas Departemen Kelautan dan Perikanan, Manado
  • Ministry of Forestry of Republic Indonesia . 2010 . Rencana Strategis 2010 – 2014 Kementerian Kehutanan, Republik Indonesia, Jakarta
  • Nandika , D . 2005 . Hutan Bagi Ketahanan Nasional Muhammadiyah University Press, Surakarta

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