By Dewi Sartika
From the air, the Indonesian island of Yamdena, with its lush rainforests and turquoise coral reefs, looks like an idyllic tropical paradise. But timber contractors are moving in to cut the trees, and Yamdena's inhabitants fear that, with the forest gone, their island will just sink into the sea.
Yamdena is part of the "Spice Islands" in the Moluccas about 1500 km east of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, where officials have given logging tycoon Liem Sioe Liong permission to move into the island with his chainsaws.
More than half of the 320,000 hectare island is rainforest, which was decreed protected by the government in 1971. But Liem's PT Alam Nusa Segar (PT ANS) began logging in Yamdena in January and has already hauled away 15,000 cubic metres of wood.
The islanders have always been against the concession, arguing that the decree was never rescinded. They say that, by granting it to PT ANS, the government violated its own rules.
But while the legal argument is still being raised, some islanders and environmental activists are worried about the ecological impact of the logging.
According to a study commissioned by the Association of Tanimbar Intellectuals, forest degradation in Yamdena will cause an annual erosion of 10 tonnes of soil per hectare.
The island has a skin of topsoil only 50 centimetres thick sitting on limestone. It takes 100 years for limestone areas to add one centimetre to the topsoil, making it nearly impossible to restore the land after the forests are gone.
The study team's leader, Abdulla Abbas Idjuddin of the Java-based Agroclimate and Land Research Centre, says logging will gradually reduce Yamdena to a lump of limestone, which will eventually be washed down to the sea.
Idjuddin adds that several islands in the Moluccas have already been submerged because of erosion of denuded topsoil.
The Forestry Department in Jakarta has agreed to form its own study team to look into the issue. But forestry minister Hasyrul Harahap has declined to include environmental non-government organisations in the effort.
Harahap said recently he doubted that logging could cause Yamdena to sink. "There are many islands on this earth that have no forest cover", he said, "And they haven't sunk." Environmentalists are outraged. They point to Tapak Kuda island in northern Sumatra, which is sinking because its mangroves have been cut. Tapak Kuda residents have been asked to evacuate.
Near Yamdena is the island of Kei, which was logged heavily by a Dutch company in the late 19th century. Today, Kei has almost no topsoil left and is covered with jagged rocks. People there grow cassava with difficulty. Even fish has become a luxury.
In Yamdena, islanders and environmentalists face an uphill fight. Timber products are Indonesia's second major export after oil and gas. The country supplies 85% of the world's demand for hardwood plywood.
The World Bank has estimated that the country loses 700,000 to 1.2 million hectares of its forests annually. Logging is responsible for a third of that amount.
Harahap tried to convince members of parliament, activists and community leaders at a recent meeting about how important logging was to Yamdena. He read out a letter from PT ANS laying out the company's plans for the island, including building a health care centre and a church and granting scholarships to village youth.
Logging company executives also projected an environment-friendly image and said they will withdraw from Yamdena if the government study proves that PT ANS is disrupting the ecology of the island.
Still, PT ANS will be permitted to continue logging while the government study is being completed. Harahap said stopping the firm would show disrespect toward the local offices that recommended that the permit be granted.
The islanders have shown no signs of giving up. In mid-July some 200 villagers staged a demonstration in the logging concession area. A short tussle between the protesters and the loggers was settled quickly, but PT ANS employees refused to report for work for two days afterwards, fearing reprisals.
[Inter Press Service/Pegasus]