Stopping the rot in logging industry

Looong article, much shortened, from the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia): … Loggers have ravaged the trees, farmers have fire-cleared, and palm-oil companies now want to drain most of the remaining Sungai Putri ("daughter of the river") forest to plant their lucrative crop. Police and officials pocket bribes, unconcerned at the fate of this environmental treasure trove. It is populated by endangered orang-utans, who swing above and make their massive nests in the treetops - but those who have to walk its paths sink in the sodden peat-mire below.

Palm oil will bring quick wealth, with promises of greater riches as 57,000 hectares are drained to enable villagers to burn and plant. They know little of global warming here and cannot comprehend that the forest's peat - rich decayed trees and organic matter between four and 13 metres deep - holds masses of carbon, potentially worth millions of dollars if protected under proposed changes to the Kyoto Protocol. Scientists calculate that clearing Sungai Putri could release 55 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. Such forest-related emissions from Indonesia have already made it the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter.

…With $US200 million ($226.5 million) from the World Bank to kick-start a global forest carbon protection fund, Indonesia is set to be the world's test case. If it can reverse practices that have destroyed nearly half its forests, clearing nearly 2 million hectares a year, it hopes to be rewarded with billions of dollars. The difficulties of changing a culture of corruption and exploitation are immense, but must be faced, says Frances Seymour, the director of the world-leading Centre for International Forestry Research.

…Indonesia is already the world's largest producer of palm oil and with demand and prices booming - partly because of its promotion as an environmentally-friendly "biofuel" - at least another 10 million hectares are earmarked.

…If the forest protection program is to work, Seymour says, funds must flow to the locals, but the scheme will face corruption and other moral challenges. "This isn't going to be easy," she says. "Do we want to pay illegal loggers to stop their illegal activities? That doesn't feel right.

"There will be trade-offs between equity and efficiency. It may be the most potent investments will be giving funds or investing in activities that appear to benefit the bad guys, not the good guys."

…Under the new program, countries such as Indonesia would earn carbon credits for halting deforestation, which could be sold to companies and other countries to help meet their targets for cuts in emissions.

The value of those carbon credits would depend on Indonesia's credibility in enforcing carbon protection and complex measurement schemes estimating the amount of carbon preserved. And the only body equipped for the job is the heavily compromised Forestry Ministry.

Seymour says her organisation "and pretty much all the organisations that care about forests face a moral hazard, because on the one hand it's great - we have new political attention, new money to do what we do - and on the other hand we know better than anyone else how hard this is going to be".