Indonesia

With more than a year into its construction, the controversial US$1.2 million Ladia Galaska road network project will link the west coast of Aceh with the eastern coast of northern Sumatra. Over 90 kilometers out of the planned 505-kilometer-long road cuts through the relatively pristine forest of the central highlands at the Leuser national park, and this would have notorious permanent negative impacts on the environment.

The Kayan Mentarang National Park situated in the interior of East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, lies at the border with Sarawak to the west and Sabah to the north. With its gazetted 1.4 million hectares, it is the largest protected area of rainforest in Borneo and one of the largest in Southeast Asia.

The "Coalition to oppose mining in Indonesia's protected areas" has issued a media release to expose how mining activities are encountering strong and mounting opposition at various levels. The Coalition is composed of the following ten groups: JATAM; WALHI-Friends of the Earth; Indonesian Center for Environment Law; WWF Indonesia; Kehati; PELANGI; Forest Watch Indonesia; MPI; POKJA PSDA; PELA.

It sometimes takes many little pieces to recognize the full picture. In the case of the continued debate about the benefits or otherwise of carbon sinks projects linked to the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), many still like to envisage it as the long-sought-for funding source for community-driven, small scale forest restoration projects.

While mining has negative impacts on all those who live in the mining communities in general and those who are affected by the mining operations, there are distinct impacts and added burdens on women. The differentiated impacts can be begun to be understood in concrete situations, such as that faced by a Dayak woman affected by a mine owned by the company PT-IMK in Indonesia.

"The strategy consisted of surviving." The population of Timor gave this answer to an Oilwatch delegation visiting the country a week after declaration of independence. To keep alive during the massacre unleashed and organised by the president of Indonesia. They even told us that the president of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, acted as a magician to save his life, thanks to a sleight of hand, when he was detained in 1992. He owes his life to magic.

The reopening of the PT Inti Indorayon Utama paper and rayon pulp mill, in Porsea, North Sumatra, has caused strong local opposition to resume. The factory is located at the centre of a densely populated district near to Lake Toba, one of the largest fresh water reservoirs in South East Asia, and releases pollutants, often unfiltered, into the environment, pollutes the water and air in the region and destroys the local Batak population's basis for life.

Indonesia ranks among one of the countries with the highest tropical forest loss rate in the world. Average annual deforestation recorded up to one million hectares in the 1980s, 1.7 million hectares in the first part of the 1990s, and between 2.0 and 2.4 million hectares at present according to statistics of the State Ministry of Environment.

"Indonesian police and company security forces are responsible for persistent human rights abuses against indigenous communities involved in the massive pulp and paper industry in Sumatra", Human Rights Watch said in a new report released on January 7, 2003. Abuses include land seizures without compensation and brutal attacks on local demonstrators. "Without Remedy: Human Rights Abuse and Indonesia's Pulp and Paper Industry", a 90-page report, extensively documents the underlying links between disregard for human rights and unsound forestry practices.

Mangroves are a primary coastal biologically diverse ecosystem in tropical and subtropical regions which has traditionally supported local livelihood providing food --since the mangrove area is spawning and nursery area for many marine species-- firewood, charcoal, and timber, among other products.

Southeast Asian countries --particularly Indonesia and Malaysia--, have over 20 million hectares or 60 percent of the world's tropical peatlands. Peat swamps occur inland just beyond coastal mangroves and often spread over some 3km to 5km on the floodplain of rivers. They are characterised by an 8m to 20m thick layer of peat, which is mainly semi-decayed plant material accumulated over some 8,000 years. As long as the peaty soil is saturated with water, the swamp ecosystem is in balance.

The Indonesian NGO movement has been supporting CBFM start since 1995. The main message of the start-up phase was that most of the CBFM models that developed in a sustainable way were based on community wisdom, culture and custom.