Nature Alert: Letters: Where will REDD money go?

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Letters: Where will REDD money go?

Letters: Where will REDD money go?

Tue, 06/02/2009 Opinion / The Jakarta Post

I refer to an article titled "RI could harvest $15 billion financial incentives annually from REDD: expert", (The Jakarta Post, May 29).

A key element in any such financial arrangement would be the need to trust the government to keep its word. Up to now, its record has been rather less than shameful.

In 1995 take, for example, the Kinshasa Declaration for Great Apes,which Indonesia signed. The government agreed to protect orangutans and their habitat. Since then it has done exactly the opposite.

As I write this letter I am about 50 miles from a forest of some 1100 hectares, currently being logged, inhabited as it is by at least 200orangutans - all of which will be systematically killed; incidentally it is illegal to kill even one orangutan.

So, signing the Kinshasa Declaration was nothing more than a public relations stunt that has turned into a PR disaster.

More recently, President Yudhoyono proclaimed great applause at the climate talks in Bali, December 2007.

"The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests. To save the orangutan we have to save theforest," he said.

Time to remind him that 200 orangutans will be slaughtered in just one forest this year, despite it being illegal to kill even one, and the exact opposite of what the President told the world his government would do.

Making matters worse, the Ministry of Forestry, who should be protecting orangutans, sold the logging license which will see these two hundred killed in the next seven months. Shame on them.

So, you see, when it comes to telling foreigners clutching fistfuls of dollarswhat they want to hear, this government simply cannot be trusted. And it comes at a price - their loss of personal integrity. Now no one ever believes a word they say about protecting the environment.

If REDD money is sent to Indonesia, as we can see, if history is anything to go by the forests will not benefit, only the governmentand the consultants pushing REDD so hard, will see the money. And definitely not the local villagers. Any doubters need only look at the government's track record to date.

Sean Whyte
Kalimantan
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/06/02/letters-where-will-redd-money-will-go.html-0

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.