Australian prison provides rehab for inmates and animals

Yahoo – AFP, August 24, 2017

Australian prisoners are caring for animals that have been abandoned, attacked by
 predators, hit by cars or even seized in a drug bust as part of a rehabilitation
programme. (AFP Photo/SAEED KHAN)

Sydney (AFP) - Australian prisoners are caring for animals that have been abandoned, attacked by predators, hit by cars or even seized in a drug bust as part of a rehabilitation programme.

Kangaroos, emus, wombats, snakes and cockatoos are just some of the native creatures being nursed back to health by inmates at a wildlife centre based in the John Morony Correctional Complex outside Sydney.

Officials say the scheme helps instil a sense of responsibility and develops life skills for offenders preparing for the outside world.

"Animals show that (love and respect) unconditionally, they don't judge, so over time they (inmates) form relationships with the animals," the wildlife centre's senior officer Ian Mitchell told AFP.

"It is a real positive impact and the animals can actually sometimes help people heal."

Selected inmates are given responsibility for a particular enclosure and are expected to feed and build shelters for the animals, while being taught how to care for their injuries or condition.

Kangaroos, emus, wombats, snakes and cockatoos are just some of the native 

creatures being nursed back to health by inmates at a wildlife centre based in 

the John Morony Correctional Complex outside Sydney. (AFP Photo/SAEED KHAN)

Some animals never leave as they would be vulnerable to predators having become accustomed to the enclosure.

But most are later released back into the wild, or found a home via the animal rescue organisation that first brought them there.

One of the more unlikely cases the centre handled was a python that was seized in a drug raid, with criminals holding the reptile as a deterrent.

The snake had become addicted to meth after absorbing the narcotic through its skin and required treatment before it was released back into the wild.

"To have watched an animal rehabilitate from something like that, it's just another dynamic," Mitchell says.

Some former offenders who have left prison continue to work with wildlife, with one teaching people how to handle venomous snakes.

Surrounded by about a dozen squawking white cockatoos -- known for their ability to mimic speech -- one inmate said he had discovered "a lot of caring I didn't know I had" working with the animals.

Tasked with feeding the nocturnal wildlife, like the possums and wombats, he added he hopes to continue to care for animals after his jail term ends.

"I'm going to miss this place," he said.

"Each corner you turn, you are greeted -- in their way.

"The ones that can talk will say 'hello' but the other ones that can't talk, they will make a sign to say g'day."

Australian prison rehabilitates inmates by having them care for native animals that have been abandoned or attacked https://t.co/e9HE1pG7qm pic.twitter.com/9d0AMqUzQO

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 24, 2017

President plants mangrove trees in Angke

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 06/07/2010 11:43 AM

Planting season: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono plants a mangrove tree in the Angke ecotourism park in North Jakarta on Monday as part of efforts to rehabilitate the mangrove forest. Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and a number of Cabinet members planted mangrove trees in the Angke ecotourism park in North Jakarta on Monday as part of efforts to rehabilitate the mangrove forest.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said his office had struck an agreement with the Jakarta administration to plant 9 million mangrove trees in the coming five years.

“We have organized tree-planting activities here in Angke Bay, in Ancol and in other places several times ,” Zulkifli said as quoted by Antara.

He added that garbage was the most responsible for the destruction of the mangrove forest along Jakarta coast.

“Our main enemy is garbage. Jakarta Bay is like a supermarket, where beds, pillows and garbage can be found,” he said.

Other officials joining the tree planting were Youth and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta, State Secretary Sudi Silalahi, Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam and Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo.

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Govt allocates Rp 600b to forest rehabilitation

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 05/05/2010 7:58 PM

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said Wednesday the government had allocated Rp 600 billion (US$66million) in budget to forest rehabilitation program by planting a total of 1 billion tree seeds across the country in the upcoming one year.

“We are obliged to rehabilitate forest days and nights if necessary,” Zulkifli said during his work trip to Pasuruan, East Java, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Zulkifli said the government would work with residents around the forest to carry out the rehabilitation

program. Each group of residents responsible for the rehabilition program would receive a minimum fund of Rp 50 million, he added.

Indonesia's Rare Wild Tigers Won’t Have to Change Stripes

Jakarat Globe, Ismira Lutfia, January 22, 2010

Panti, a six-year-old Sumatran tiger, lying sedated in a cage before being released into the wild in southern Sumatra after an 18-month rehabilitation. (JG Photo/Afriadi Hikmal)

Lampung. After a lengthy rehabilitation process, two Sumatran tigers were released into the jungle on the southern tip of Sumatra island on Friday, on the newly declared National Day for Wildlife Conservation.

Panti, a six-year-old tigress, and Buyung, an eight-year-old tiger, are now roaming free in the 385,000-hectare Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, joining an estimated 45 Sumatran tigers remaining there.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan pulled the rope that opened the cages, marking their release after 18 months of rehabilitation at a tiger rescue-center at the Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation.

“Massive deforestation has decreased the tigers’ natural habitat and has prompted human-tiger conflicts when they would roam into villages in search of food,” Zulkifli said.

The Tambling Conservation, which comprises 45,000 hectares of the park, has been home for Panti, Buyung and four other members of the critically endangered species since they were relocated from South Aceh, where they were captured by villagers. The tigers had been kept in cages at the Aceh nature conservancy office before they were moved to Lampung.

Buyung and Panti — whose name is a shortened version of her species’ Latin name, Panthera tigris — ran off in different directions when their cages were opened, quickly disappearing into the bush.

Chips were implanted into the tigers to allow the monitoring of their movements.

Earlier on Friday in Jakarta, Vice President Boediono declared January 22 National Day for Wildlife Conservation.

“Giving room to rare species is our task together,” he said during the declaration at the Vice Presidential Palace.

The release of the tigers into the wild comes a few days after the government revealed a plan to offer rare Sumatran tigers for adoption by citizens.

Tiger “adoption”— where a pair can be rented out as pets in exchange for a Rp 1 billion ($107,100) deposit — could help curb illegal hunting and trade, a Forestry Ministry official said on Friday.

“There is much demand from rich people who want them, who feel that if they own a tiger they are big shots. We have to take concrete steps to protect these animals,” said Darori, the ministry’s chief of forest protection and nature conservancy.

The tiger “renters” would be required to allow quarterly visits by a team of vets, animal welfare officers and ministerial staff. They would also be required to provide the tigers with cages of minimum dimensions: five meters high, six meters wide and 10 meters long.

The animals would come from captivity.

Darori acknowledged that he had already received complaints about the plan from 12 environmental organizations.

“So we have invited them for consultations before we continue with this plan. If we can agree, it will be put into practice as soon as possible,” he said.

Environmental activists have criticized the plan, saying it was a wrong approach to saving the tigers from extinction.

Greenpeace’s forest campaigner, Bustar Maitar, said the plan was tantamount to selling off the tigers.

“It shows the government is not serious about addressing the real issues threatening Sumatran tigers. They need to stop issuing forest concessions,” he said.

Only about 400 Sumatran tigers are believed to be left in Indonesia. Deforestation has destroyed much of their native habitat and they are hunted for traditional medicines and illegal menageries.

With additional reporting from Reuters and Camelia Pasandaran

Green-minded mayor given Javanese name

The Jakarta Post | Tue, 12/01/2009 9:22 PM

Pangkalpinang Mayor Zulkarnain Karim from the Sumatran province of Bangka Belitung has been given the Javanese nickname Wagiman not because of any link to the island but because of his green thumb.

Head of the city's environment agency, Bani Baehaki, says Wagiman is a Javanese acronym for a “tree-planting mayor”.

“We call him Wagiman to highlight his leading role in the city’s reforestation program,” Bani told Antara on Tuesday.

The agency will plant 60,000 seedlings of various tropical fruit trees, including rambutan, durian and cajuput, in the city’s 137 hectares of forest as part of a massive tree-planting program.

The agency has also planted 1,000 mangrove seedlings along Tanjung Bunga beach to rehabilitate the coastal area, which had been degraded due to tin mining exploration and massive coral reef poaching.

Bani called on the city's residents to stand behind Wagiman by protecting the forests and fore shores and by not littering.

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Environment Group Urges Moratorium on Forest Exploration

Tempo Interactive, Friday, 27 November, 2009 | 21:36 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Environment group Indonesia Friends of the Earth (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup - Walhi) has urged the government to suspend expansion of forest exploration, stressing that forest recovery program will not do enough without moratorium on forest exploitation.

Director Executive Berry Nahdian Forqan said on Friday Rehabilitation is not enough without moratorium. he said there should be no expansion on forest exploitation during forest recovery.

Walhi urged the government to create comprehensive recovery program which involved local governments and review then revoke all forest exploitation license which have been used for other purposes unspecified in the original license.

Berry confirmed the statement made by the new Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan that forest area in the country has decreased to only around 20 percent.

PRAMONO

Govt plans to rehabilitate 2.5 million hectares of forest

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 11/26/2009 6:24 PM

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan says the government will rehabilitate 2.5 million hectares of critical forest area over the next five years through a program that involves local residents

Under the community forest program, a family will be granted the right to manage up to 15 hectares of forest area for a maximum 35 years. The family will be allowed to cultivate plants of their choice, including rubber trees.

“In the past a resident could control millions of hectare of forest, which certainly defies the sense of justice,” Zulkilfi said as quoted by Antara.

The government will also provide forest rehabilitation fund to help the residents manage the forest, Zulkifli said.

“Through the program we aim to rehabilitate forest and improve the welfare of people living near the forest,” he added.

The government estimates about 16,000 families live near forest areas across the country.

Indonesia Forestry Ministry Asks for Cash Boost

The Jakarta Globe, Arti Ekawati

Saving Indonesia's forests will take five times its current budget, the Forestry Ministry says. (Photo: Ardiles Rante, AFP/Greenpeace handout)

The Ministry of Forestry said on Monday that it needed a more than fivefold raise in its budget for rehabilitating damaged forests if it is to meet the government rehabilitation target — a key part of efforts to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

The ministry said it would ask the House of Representatives to increase its rehabilitation budget from the current Rp 500 billion ($53.5 million) a year to Rp 2.8 trillion in 2010.

Forestry Ministry Zulkifli Hasan said Rp 500 billion was nowhere near enough to meet the government target of revitalizing 500,000 hectares in 2010 by planting trees such as durian, sengon and teak. “It’s not enough and we will ask the House of Representative to increase the budget,” he said.

Indriastuti, the Forestry Ministry’s director general of land rehabilitation and community forestry, said about Rp 3 trillion was needed to rehabilitate 500,000 hectares of land a year.

According to Zulkifli, the Finance Ministry collects about Rp 2.5 trillion a year on average from forestry companies under the forest retribution fund. The money comes from concessions holders that manage government-owned woodlands and from firms that have converted forests to other uses such as plantations.

But only a small amount of this money reaches the Forestry Ministry, with much of the unspent funds going to non-forestry projects, he said.

Elfian Effendi, executive director of policy development institute Greenomics Indonesia, said the government should concentrate on developing more programs for sustainable forest management.

“The government must have concrete data on land which is going to be rehabilitated, and laws preventing people from converting forestry land to plantations or mining must be enforced.”

Currently, about four million hectares of state-owned forest have been converted to plantations without licenses and about 200,000 hectares were being used for mining without permission, Elfian said.

The vast area of damaged forestry land was a cause for alarm, he said. Based on Forest Ministry’ data, forest degradation averages 1.8 million hectares per year, and was mostly caused by illegal logging and opening up forestry land for other uses.

Data also show there is about 51.03 million hectares of damaged forestry land across the archipelago.

President defends land use fees to save forests

Dessy Nurhayati and Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono defended Friday a new regulation to impose fees on non-forestry firms to rehabilitate the country's deteriorating forests.

The regulation would raise extra money to finance reforestation programs, he said.

"The aim is good, to save our forests," the President told reporters after a limited Cabinet meeting at the Forestry Ministry.

In attendance were Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Coordinating Minister for Economics Boediono, Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani.

Yudhoyono said many people, however, misread the regulation and accused the government of renting out the protected forests to investors.

"The idea is not a forest-renting business. This is not to rent protected forests to mining companies," he said.

The President said the forest use fees of between Rp 1.2 million and Rp 3 million per hectare per year, as set in the regulation, could still be debated.

Environmental groups have said the fees were too low compared to potential environmental losses from open-pit mining activities.

Greenomics Indonesia has proposed the government raise the fees to US$16,000 per hectare per year.

Senior forestry official Yetti Rusli said the fee had been determined without prior research, by a team comprising inter-governmental officials.

"The decision (on fees) was made merely from computer simulations," she said.

Yetti said the team had calculated the projected production cost and revenues of non-forestry companies, including mining ones, when running businesses in forests.

"Therefore the fee could be changed depending on domestic and global economic conditions," she said.

Yetti said her office could not set higher fees for forest use as it would affect the country's investment climate.

Minister Kaban insisted the government would not award new licenses for open-pit mining companies to operate in protected forests.

"The forest use fee is only for companies failing to provide lands as compensation for the forest areas they use for their business," he said.

Data from the ministry shows there are currently 334 non-forestry businesses operating in the country's 293,556 hectares of forests.

The ministry is now examining 586 business proposals for licenses.

In 2004, the government agreed to allow 13 firms to run an open-pit mining business in protected forests, mostly in the eastern part of the country.

However, none of the 13 companies have started operations.

Indonesia contains the world's third-largest forest areas after Brazil and Congo, with 120 million hectares.

President Yudhoyono said the country had 66 million hectares of production forests and 33 million hectares of protected forests. The remaining 20 million hectares are conservation forests, he said.

He said the government would work to improve community-based forests to help raise the welfare of local people.

"We are now developing community-based forests in North Sumatra, Yogyakarta, West Nusa Tenggara and Southeast Sulawesi," he said.

Owa Jawa monkeys prepared for release back to forest

Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor

The Cikananga Animal Rescue Center in Sukabumi on Tuesday turned over six Owa Jawa monkeys (Hylobates moloch) for rehabilitation before their release back to the forest.

The endangered monkeys were brought to the Owa Jawa Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, at the Bedogol resort in Bogor's Gede Pangrango Mountain National Park.

Owa Jawa monkeys, which are endemic to Java island, can only be found in certain areas of West Java. Their population has fallen drastically as a result of illegal poaching and dwindling habitat.

Animal rescue center spokesman Budiharto said they had a total of 14 Owa Jawa monkeys confiscated from or voluntarily handed in by pet owners in Greater Jakarta and West Java.

"We will gradually bring the other eight monkeys to the center for rehabilitation in the next few months," he said.

On Tuesday, the animal rescue center brought three female monkeys to the rehabilitation center. They were six-year-old Kiky and 10-year-olds Mell and Eci, who is about one-month pregnant. The male monkeys are named Sadewa, Pooh and Septa, all age seven.

Rehabilitation center manager Anton Ario said the monkeys would need about a month of rehabilitation before being returned to the forest.

"The main problem we have here is the lack of funds for the monkeys' health checks and food .... We encourage people to adopt Owa Jawa, not as pets, but to help them survive during rehabilitation," he said.

In the Age of Noah

By Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, December 23, 2007

A couple of weeks ago, The Times’s Jim Yardley reported from China that the world’s last known female Yangtze giant soft-shell turtle was living in one Chinese zoo, while the planet’s only undisputed, known giant soft-shell male turtle was living in another — and together this aging pair were the last hope of saving a species believed to be the largest freshwater turtles in the world.

It struck me as I read that story that our generation has entered a phase that no previous generation has ever experienced: the Noah phase. With more and more species threatened with extinction by The Flood that is today’s global economic juggernaut, we may be the first generation in human history that literally has to act like Noah — to save the last pairs of a wide range of species.

Or as God commanded Noah in Genesis: “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.”

Unlike Noah, though, we’re also the ones causing The Flood, as more and more forests, fisheries, rivers and fertile soils are gobbled up for development. “The loss of global biological diversity is advancing at an unprecedented pace,” Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s environment minister, recently told the BBC. “Up to 150 species are becoming extinct every day. ... The web of life that sustains our global society is getting weaker and weaker.”

The world is rightly focused on climate change. But if we don’t have a strategy for reducing global carbon emissions and preserving biodiversity, we could end up in a very bad place, like in a crazy rush into corn ethanol, and palm oil for biodiesel, without enough regard for their impact on the natural world.

“If we don’t plan well, we could find ourselves with a healthy climate on a dead planet,” said Glenn Prickett, senior vice president of Conservation International.

I met one of our generation’s Noahs here in Indonesia: Dr. Jatna Supriatna, a conservation biologist who runs Conservation International’s Indonesia programs. One of his main projects is saving the nearly extinct Javan gibbon, a beautiful primate endemic to the Indonesian island of Java. The Javan gibbon population, decimated by deforestation, is down to an estimated 400, spread out around 20 tropical forest areas in West Java.

Mr. Supriatna helps run the Javan gibbon rehabilitation center, a collection of cages embedded in the mountains of Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, near Jakarta, where male and female gibbons — which are known for their lengthy courtships, not one-night stands — get to know each other over months. First, they live in forest cages side by side, then together and then, if everything works, they produce a couple of babies.

But the process is so slow, and the species so endangered, we may soon be down to the last few pairs — a great loss. Watching a gibbon swing from tree limbs, ropes and bars is like watching a small ape win the Olympic gold medal in gymnastics.

The only way to head off species loss in Indonesia, the country with the most diverse combination of plants, animals and marine life in the world, is the old truism, “It takes a village.” So much of his work here, said Mr. Supriatna, is trying to build coalitions by melding businesses that have an interest in preserving the forest — the geothermal energy investor, for example, who needs trees to maintain the watershed for his power plant — with local governments, which have an interest in preventing illegal logging, with local villagers who need forests to prevent soil erosion and provide fresh water.

Environmentalists here constantly have to work against corrupt local officials, who get bought off by logging interests, and villagers who don’t understand how important the forests are to their daily lives. One of his recent projects, said Mr. Supriatna, was to pipe fresh water from the forest watershed to a nearby village so people there understood the connection. Lately, he has taken his work to the imams who run the local Muslim schools.

“We teach them that the source of the water comes from the mountain and the park,” he said. “And if the park is gone, they will not have the clean water they need for prayer rituals. If you influence the imam, he will influence all the kids.”

For so many years, Indonesians, like many of us, have been taught that life is a trade-off: healthy people with lots of jobs or healthy forests with lots of gibbons — you can’t have both. But the truth is you have to have both. If you don’t, you’ll eventually end up with neither, and then it will be too late even for Noah.

(This is my last column until April. I will be on leave, writing a book on energy and the environment. Happy holidays!)

Tree planting mandatory, cutting prohibited in RI action plan

The government has released a report on a plan of action covering the mitigation and adaptation efforts for climate change. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono officially launched the report during the recent climate conference in Bali. The plan of action on mitigation and adaptation covers the forestry, energy, agriculture, water resources, infrastructure and health sectors. Below is the first article focusing on the forestry sector.

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Forestry Ministry wants the government to issue a policy making it mandatory for each Indonesian citizen to plant a tree every year to store more carbon.

In its action plan, the ministry said anyone who wished to cut down a tree with a diameter of more than 10 centimeters had to secure a permit issued by the government.

"And anyone who fells a tree has to plant two more trees," the action plan stated.

The director general of the forestry research and development agency, Wahjudi Wardojo, said planting trees was one of the most effective ways to mitigate climate change.

"We hope local administrations set a rule requiring local citizens to plant more trees," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The ministry has set five targets for its mitigation action plan until 2009.

The targets are; to combat illegal logging, rehabilitate forest land and conservation areas, restructure the forestry sector especially for industrial aims, empower local communities living near forests and improve institutions monitoring forests.

The action plan states the ministry will rehabilitate 11 million hectares of damaged forests until 2009, 4,8 million hectares until 2012 and 16 million hectares for 2025.

"The remaining will be rehabilitated until 2050," it says.

The ministry also aims to reduce the deforestation rate.

"We have targeted to reduce deforestation by 23.63 million hectares until 2009, 6.15 million hectares until 2012 and 10 million hectares until 2025," the action plan stated.

The ministry has targeted to reduce forest fires by 50 percent by 2009 and 75 percent by 2012.

Wahjudi said in order to meet the targets, the ministry needed a national and international funding mechanism.

"Without financial support from the international community, it will be difficult to reach the target," he said.

The Kyoto Protocol on climate change is an international binding treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions to combat global warming.

The protocol allows developing countries to host afforestation and reforestation projects to reap cash under the Clean Development Mechanism.

The Bali climate conference agreed to adopt the reduction of emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD) mechanism, which is aimed at providing financial incentives for protecting forests.

Climate experts have long admitted the importance of trees in storing carbon dioxide (CO2), the main contributor to global warming, from being released into air.

The United Nations' report on climate change said deforestation contributed to around 20 percent of global emissions in the 1990s.

The report said global forests covered 4 billion hectares, or around 30 percent of the Earth's surface in 2005; containing about 638 gigatons of carbon.

Indonesia -- the world's biggest forest country after Brazil and the Republic of Congo -- has 120.35 million hectares of forest.

The ministry predicted the country's forests could stock up to 115 gigatons of carbon in 2005.

However, due to rampant illegal logging and land conversion, the country's forests have released a significant amount of carbon into the air.

The ministry estimated that with a forest degradation level of 53.9 million in 2005, the forests 'suffered a loss' of up to 2.1 gigatons of carbon stocks.

The ministry said rampant degradation was mainly due to the creation of new regions, agricultural areas, plantations, illegal logging and forest fires.

Wetlands International, an international environmental NGO, has listed Indonesia as the world's third-largest carbon emitter, due to a high level of forest degradation and the large number of forest fires in the country last year.

Lampung finds community solution to forest conservation

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Lampung

Lampung administration has developed a forest conservation area which involves residents.

Since 2000, 6,537 households near Rigil hill and Tangkit Tebak forest in West Lampung municipality have taken part in the "Forest Community" program, regreening the 12-hectare forest which was damaged by illegal logging.

As an incentive, the villagers -- who work in groups -- are allowed to cultivate a part of the damaged forest for a five year term.

Now, not only do they enjoy the harvests from their crops, but also benefit from the restored forest.

"We're glad we have land to work on ... so that we can support ourselves, while protecting the environment," a farmer, Erfan, said.

The team responsible for the program consists of the village chief, officials from the environmental management board and forest conservation supervision unit, environmentalists and farmer organizations.

The team supervises farmers in groups of 50 and manages land use, distribution, planning and licensing, which is required by people wishing to cultivate land in the area. The team also evaluates the performance of farmer groups each year.

"Groups who are successful in operating under the program would be given permission to cultivate the forest land for 25 years, as recently instructed by West Lampung Mayor Erwin Nizar," a team member and environmentalist from Keluarga Pecinta Lingkungan (Environmentalist Family), Rama Zakaria, said.

Farmers are not allowed to build houses or even shacks in the forest near their crops or to sell the land, or they will lose permission to use the land in the coming year.

Rama said community-based forest management was the best way to prevent the forest from being damaged.

"Farmers until now ... witness forest destruction but can do nothing. Now, with the forest management based in the community they can participate to protect it, and even bust the illegal loggers."

Rama said even though the Forest Community pilot project has gone well, there were still many obstacles in repairing damaged forests in other parts of the province, particularly in two national parks and one protected forest.

He said Lampung faces rampant illegal logging activities which have damaged 60 percent of the 125,000-ha Way Kambas national park in East Lampung, 40 percent of the 365,000-ha Bukit Barisan Selatan national park and 40 percent of the 22,000-ha Wan Abdur Rahman protected forest in Bandar Lampung.

According to environment management board data cited by Rama, 1.4 of 3.3 million ha of Lampung is forested, but 65 percent of it is now damaged.

"At first, the administration was reluctant to allow residents to manage and cultivate crops in forest areas, but after they saw how it is managed, (they) cooperated," Rama said.

World Bank data from 2007 shows Indonesia became the world's third biggest carbon dioxide emitter because of uncontrolled forest degradation.

"It is embarrassing to find the world pointing at Indonesia as one of the main contributors to global warming when once we were so proud of our forests," Rama said.

Transmigrants to be used for green work

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government plans to revive the transmigration program shut down 13 years ago so it can push forward with its current reforestation drive.

Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban said Tuesday the ongoing forest rehabilitation and conservation efforts had met with a labor shortage and expected transmigration, organized in cooperation with the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, to provide the human resources needed.

"Under the program, migrants and locals, will be able to benefit from the planting of commercial timber to rehabilitate land degraded by illegal logging, over-farming and other activities," Kaban told the opening of a joint meeting session with the Manpower Ministry.

The government launched its reforestation program early this year, with the aim to rehabilitate around 50 million hectares of damaged forest across Indonesia. It intends to plant the degraded land with fast growing tree species, like acacia, which can be harvested for timber after five to seven years.

The Manpower Ministry plans to send some 150,000 families to 436 locations in a number of forests in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. The two-day meeting aims to ascertain the status of 39 locations from a list of areas targeted for replanting, inside conservation and productive forests.

Manpower Minister Erman Suparno said his ministry had initially listed the 39 locations as potential destinations on the basis of suggestions from local administrations, while further investigation revealed they were areas under the control of the Forestry Ministry.

"The joint meeting will discuss the land status in the 39 locations and whether to drop any of them from the destination list or to grant migrants land use concessions there, instead of land possession," he said.

He added that the status of the land should be clarified before sending any migrants to prevent possible conflicts like those which occurred previously in the transmigration program when overlapping land claims arose.

The transmigration program, which was initiated in 1950 under the Soekarno administration and escalated during Soeharto's New Order regime, aimed at producing an evenly distributed population.

Under the program, residents from densely populated provinces were relocated to sparsely settled areas. Land for farming, housing and several years of living expenses were provided by the government.

According to data from 2000, 59 percent of Indonesia's population (of around 200 million) live in Java.

The Manpower Ministry has set an annual target to send around 150,000 migrant families, mostly unemployed and poor, amid criticisms the scheme involves the mass movement of poverty from one region to another.

Minister Erman said cooperating with the Forestry Ministry would address the weaknesses in the previous resettlement programs owing to the lack of job opportunities in relocation areas.

Soeryo Adiwibowo, a researcher from the Department of Communication and Community Development at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said the resettlement plan was not likely to run well.

"Most migrants are used to rice farming in their hometowns and do not have skills to plant a forest," he told The Jakarta Post.

"There are a lot things to do before sending them to the forests and I think the government has failed to take these things into account. We can see from previous resettlements in which many were met with failure," he said. (lln)