Prince Charles visit and value of Indonesian forest

Prince Charles visit to Indonesia has become a headline in the news. What has been interesting for me is his visit to a forest in Jambi, south part of Sumatera. I have asked myself why forest and why Jambi. Later I found that the Prince is interested on flora and fauna, and especially he is keen of bird, and even if I am not mistaken he has supported the Royal Society of Bird protection. The answer for why Jambi forest is chosen is not very clear yet for me, but I assume it is related to security issues or other specific criteria for places he can or can’t visit.

Back to his interest on bird protection and its habitat, forest, I suddenly remember what I have learned in a subject community natural resource management during my study in Australia. I have seen that there are different values are put into forest and other natural resources. In Victoria, for example, I have seen that forest protection has linked to the society’s interests for protecting habitat for bird, providing good habitats for native animals, and also for recreation. So, conflicts have arised, for example, between bird lovers and dog walking groups, in which bird lovers have seen that dogs that are unleashed along the beach in the national park area has scared rare birds, and those dog walking in the beach part of the national park should be prohibited. In other words, aesthetic value has become an important part that drive people’s interest on forest.

Saying this, of course I will not neglect that use value is still as important as that aesthetic value as conflict has also arised on forest cutting for woods, such as in Tasmania. However, what I have seen in a developed country like Australia has struck my previous understanding of forest which is in Indonesia has a very important economic and social value.

In 2005, when I did my fieldwork for my article on illegal logging activities published in GATRA weekly news magazine where I worked, I visited Betung Kerihun national park in West Kalimantan, where forest have been cut down by local people for exchange of rupiahs from the tauke, money holders, and then the woods are trucked to the border area of Sabah. It can be easily seen in the surrounding area, that the locals have ‘modern’ stuff such as motorcycle, satellite disk (parabola), television, etc. What has been ironic is that despite money has been poured into the local area for people to cut trees, most of the people in the area are still live in poverty.

So that my question was where those large amounts of money goes into? Do indigenous local people whose live are attached to the forest or even dependant on forest has changed the forest value: from social and religious value, to see forest as a part of their live and a representation of their ancestor, to economic value where forest is seen merely as a source of income?

Learning from these two different experiences on forest value for the local people in a developed country like Australia and a developing country like Indonesia has lead me to an understanding that a same forest can has different meaning for different people and society. Whilst in developed countries, value of forest has moved beyond use value to a level of aesthetical value, in developing countries, value of forest is mainly related to use value as forest become a source for generating income or for livelihood of local people.

Back to the Prince visit to Indonesia, his concern for bird protection or protection of other rare species of flora and fauna in the forest may be important reasons for him to care about forest. On another side, in a country like Indonesia where poverty spread out widely, including in the forest frontier, the conservation can be seen by the local as a barrier for them to earn money for living. Thus, in Indonesia there is a challenge to combine environmental protection and livelihood provision for the people. In this case, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ which has become a jargon faces its challenge to be solved in the reality.