Rainbow warrior: large-scale logging in Indonesia

Large-scale logging has ravaged biodiversity in Indonesia, but is the tide beginning to turn?

South African Kumi Naidoo, international executive director of Greenpeace, said a billion-dollar deal between Norway and Indonesia to save Indonesia’s rainforests has slowed a “tidal wave” of logging destruction, but he warned that much more needed to be done. The Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, concluded a one-month tour of Indonesia in June to raise awareness of the country’s rich, yet threatened, biodiversity.

Approximately 10% of the world’s rainforests are located in Indonesia. Fifty years ago, 82% of Indonesia was covered with forests but in the past decade, this has dropped to 48% due to relentless deforestation for pulp and paper, palm oil plantations and mining. While many environmentalists have sharply criticised Indonesian efforts to end rampant logging across some of the planet’s most vital forests, Naidoo told AFP last month the tide has turned against logging, giving reason for hope.
He said that a key plank of conservation efforts was a deal brokered through the United Nations’ climate change negotiations, whereby Norway pays Indonesia $1 billion to protect its remaining rainforests and peatland. As part of that deal, the government placed a moratorium two years ago on issuing new logging permits for virgin rainforests. The ban was recently extended for another two years, but activists say huge areas continue to be logged because of widespread corruption and many loopholes in the moratorium.
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