Indonesia’s forests getting attacked from both ends

The recent meeting of the World Bank in Singapore, promoted a ban on foreign demonstrators. Not really a surprise, who needs democracy when we’re talking about money?

After criticism, Singapore backed down and allowed some of the protestors into the country. One of the topics, that Singapore and other countries did not want to hear about, was deforestation. Singapore hasn’t got any forest, so what does it care, but other countries, such as Indonesia do, and there is rampant deforestation by locals, small and big businesses.

Indonesia has the world’s worst deforestation problem, and its not hard to see why. A friend of mine bought land in Nusa Dua, that had some lovely avocado trees. When he came back a week later, all the trees were gone, locals using them for firewood. This is the micro level problem. The next level is the use of teak for carving and furniture. Most of Bali’s teak forests are gone. After that we get the slash and burn strategies, used to clear jungle for farm land. Top of the pile are multi-nationals using wood for pulp. One of the biggest, United Fibre System (UFS), is located in Singapore. The local need for wood, plus the large scale hunger for cash, mean the poor old forests aren’t going to be around for much longer. The World Bank and IMF support some of those responsible.

No wonder the Singaporeans didn’t want protestors.