Deforestation in Indonesia: Part One
In February this year the Indonesian Moslem Council (MUI) issued a fatwa on deforestation, declaring the activity as haram or forbidden. A commendable act by a religious institution which is rarely at the forefront of issues like this. It is hoped that the fatwa will discourage many illegal loggers in this Moslem-majority country. How impactful, though, will this fatwa be? And when it comes to cutting trees on a massive scale, who is actually the biggest culprit?
Let’s get something straight. Complex, systemic issues require equally complex, systemic solutions. And deforestation is one of such issues. The problem lies deep within the system itself and it goes hand in hand with various other systemic issues, such as poverty, mismanagement and/or misgovernment, and something akin to national pride.
Forests are not only cut for their timber or to clear the land to make room for, say, cattle farming. Increasingly, trees are razed level with the ground because there exist other commodities in the area which garner higher price points on the market. For the past few years in Indonesia, this commodity has been nickel. One of the ingredients in the making of Lithium-ion batteries which are needed in most electric vehicles and solar panels, its ores can be found in the Earth’s crust in various regions across the world. The largest reserves in the world, though, are in Indonesia and, yes, within those tropical rain forests.
The irony of this — if it isn’t obvious already — is that in our effort to become green by driving an electric car or powering our house with solar panels, we actually have to, well, cut trees and clear forests. In the past we humans have never faced such a dilemma with other minerals, such as coal. The choices have always been either/or. Green and environmentally friendly on one side; dirty and environmentally destructive on the other. It is only in the past five, ten years that this dichotomy gets blurred.
The islands of Borneo (Kalimantan) and Sumatra have always been notorious for deforestation where tens of thousands of hectares of rain forests which are home to some of the most critically endangered species, such as orangutans and rhinos and hornbills, are continually converted into coal mining, oil palm plantation and industrial pulpwood plantation. All within legal frameworks and with the nod from the related ministry. According to the report issued last year by Auriga Nusantara, the provinces of West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and East Kalimantan are the top three most deforested provinces in the country thanks to those deforestation agents. But with the world’s increasing demands for electric vehicles and solar panels and thus nickel, the title of the most deforested province may soon shift to South Sulawesi where most of the nickel deposits in the country are concentrated. One report suggests that so far forests the size of Singapore have been cleared and converted into open-pit nickel mine sites — this quoted size is likely to be an understatement — and half a million hectares more is to meet the same fate within the next few years. Indonesia, as a whole, may be categorized as HFHD (High Forest, High Deforestation) as can be seen in the diagram below.
