Indonesia's forestry industry risks to go bankrupt due to illegal logging

Personal note to EC and British government officials:

This is the very same illegal logging you bureaucrats in the EC and British DFID claim has been on the decline....and even have the nerve to claim credit for. Why is it the media are forever reporting ‘rampant illegal logging continues’ and yet the EC and British DFID, plus Chatham House, say otherwise? Presumably it is to try and explain away the millions of pounds wasted.

I mean, even here in this article you have the logging industry saying illegal logging is a “chronic problem”. If, and I doubt you do, you want to know where the money has gone, try reading http://news.malaysia.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4056245

The EC and British DFID are a BIG part of the problem as all they do is to encourage complacency, bureaucracy and corruption in Indonesia. SHAME ON THE PEOPLE CONCERNED. It’s time you employed some people in Indonesia prepared to report the truth.

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Indonesia's forestry industry risks to go bankrupt due to illegal logging

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

JAKARTA, Apr. 28, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Indonesia's forestry industry risks to go bankrupt due to illegal logging which triggers lack of material and reduces ability of local companies to compete with foreign counterparts, an official said here on Wednesday.

Sudradjat Djajapertjunda, the chairman of the Indonesian Forest Society, an organization of forestry companies, told a seminar that illegal logging is one of chronic problems in the sector that pose a massive negative effect. "In the popular term, the threat of bankruptcy on forestry activities and industry is known as forestry de-industrialization," said Sudradjat.

According to him, the national forestry industry which was the main player in the world's wood market has turned to be blur picture of forestry sector now. "It is dying or at the brink of destruction more precisely," said Sudradjat. "Many forestry companies go bankrupt, factories closed while employers and capital owners switched to other countries with much conducive economic climate," said Sudradjat.

According to him, rampant illegal logging plays a big role in rising wood smuggling to overseas, killing Indonesian forestry industry in the international market.

He also said that more expensive official wood price bought by legal wood processing companies make them uncompetitive in competing with illegal ones.

Furthermore, he said, the forestry sector de-industrialization will carry follow-up effects. "Obviously, the gross domestic product in regions with significant forestry sector like provinces of East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Riau and Papua will decrease," said Sudradjat.

Besides, he said, it risks to pose mass layoff whereas the sector provides jobs for 16 million of people.

In larger scale, he said, the de-industrialization will trigger political and security instability.

(Source: iStockAnalyst )