We must preserve the rainforest and support economic opportunity for the world’s poor. It’s shocking when anyone suggests that emerging nations must choose between saving their rainforests and promoting economic development.
There is no choice. We must do both.
Real sustainability will only take place when people can comfortably feed their families. Until then, none of the world’s forests are safe from illegal loggers who either ravage the jungle to harvest a few valuable hardwood trees for sale to furniture makers or clear natural forest land for crops.
The real issue developing nations face is finding the right balance between economic development and protecting natural forest.
Modern Forestry Helps the Environment and People
Modern forestry policies reflect these competing needs.
Consider Indonesia. For nearly 300 years, Dutch and other trading companies slashed and burned millions of hectares of Indonesian rainforest for plantations to grow crops. Today, those practices are illegal.
Governments like that of Indonesia embrace scientific standards for plantation conversion and impose strict regulations on companies doing the converting. For example, Indonesian forest policy protects high-value rainforest and critical peat land. Plantations can legally be located only on land the government defines as “degraded,” such as logged-over, non-primary, non-high-value forests, and “denuded”.
Because of these government policies, more than half of Indonesia’s land mass remains tree-covered – making the Indonesian rainforest one of the world’s largest tracts of natural preserves in the world.
At the same time, this smart forest policy has helped people.
Again, consider Indonesia. About 38 percent of Indonesians work in agriculture, and government policies that promote sustainable development have significantly helped to improve the lives of typical citizens. Consider just a few indicators: Life expectancy at birth has risen from 37.5 years in 1950 to 71.05 in 2010. Literacy has risen from 67.3 percent in 1980 to 92 percent in 2006. Poverty has declined from 60 percent in 1970 to 13.3 percent today.
Emerging nations recognize they must use their natural resources to fuel economic growth. They follow a model developed countries have used for centuries, tapping their own – or their colonies’ – natural resources to improve people’s quality of life.
But smart policy like Indonesia’s improves quality of life while minimizing the threat to natural treasures. And it has helped Indonesia improve its gross domestic product while reducing external debt.
Obviously, Indonesia still has problems. More than 30 million people live in poverty, for example. That’s one reason why you still see smoke billowing from forests where rogue smallholders illegally clear tracts for personal and community farming and agriculture needs. Government regulations ban such vandalism, but enforcing the law is difficult when resources are limited and the closest road is a day’s hike from the burning field.
Commitment to Sustainability is Real
Some critics say that Indonesia and other emerging countries are too corrupt or too weak-willed to truly protect the environment, but the evidence is clear that these nations are at least as committed to real preservation as more developed countries.
Consider that in 2011 the first stage of a unique Norway-Indonesia partnership will be implemented. It will impose a two-year suspension on new concessions for conversion into plantations. This period – the “moratorium” – has gotten a lot of attention worldwide. It is the first step towards creating a viable economic model for the UN’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programs.
Indonesia has also imposed tough new forest and chain of custody certification standards that will take effect in 2015. My company, Asia Pulp and Paper Group, has joined with other Indonesian companies and industry associations to embrace this new sustainability standard, which is designed to meet the strict requirements being imposed on forest product imports by nations around the world.
There is much to do, but we are proud of our achievements so far. Real progress is being made to find the middle path that both improves the quality of life for the world’s poor and protects the world’s rainforests.
Ian Lifshitz is North American Director of Sustainability & Stakeholder Relations at Asia Pulp and Paper Group (APP).
