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 ForestFocus on Indonesia: Page 11 The future of Indonesia's forests and their wildlife may be as bleak as that of other tropical forests in the Philippines, Thailand, West Africa and many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. The disappearance and endangerment of large, wide-ranging mammals, followed by fragmentation and loss of the fauna and flora of entire regions, is a pattern that is being repeated here. The government has set aside many national parks, but as in other parts of the world, they are rarely given a high priority for protection, and local people are allowed to log and even establish agriculture plantings and villages within them. The native tribes of Papua and Kalimantan may force a change in the attitude of the government toward the forests and even end in a return of the land to the people who have lived there for thousands of years and have a strong bond with the native trees and animals. Violence has broken out between natives and immigrants on both islands, leading to the forced departure of hundreds of people in Kalimantan after many were killed by Dyak tribesmen in 2001. In Papua New Guinea, international rainforest organizations have become allied with native tribes in fighting corporate loggers from Australia, and they have been successful in taking legal actions that negated corrupt agreements made between their own leaders and the loggers.
The potential for ecotourism in Indonesia is great. The islands are already a major draw for tourists, spending more than $1 billion per year. A powerful movement for democracy is making strides in the country, and with more help from the United States and other democracies of the world, this would become a reality. With a radical change in Indonesia's government, priorities might change to benefit the Indonesian people and their environment instead of making the rich richer at the expense of biodiversity. If that happened, more and more people would learn the value of preserving forests and the country's extraordinary biodiversity for their own benefit as well as that of the entire world. The thin, tropical soils of the country have proven to be best for growing trees, and when this is better appreciated, the tide may turn.
Strong and immediate action is required, however, to prevent biological diversity losses that will dwarf those of any other area on Earth. Stabilizing the human population would be a major step in the right direction. By 2025, it is projected that Indonesia's population will exceed 275 million (Mittermeier et al. 1999a). If the government does not stop the disastrous and unsuccessful resettlement program, there will be no wilderness forests left, and the remotest national parks will be invaded for tree and rattan cutting and other destructive uses that will inevitably cause massive animal and plant extinctions.
The participation of international conservation organizations in programs to educate Indonesians to live in harmony with nature and to protect biodiversity is in its early stages. Several of these groups have helped produce field guides, books, posters, pamphlets and textbooks, and the series Ecology of Indonesia, in Indonesian (Mittermeier et al. 1999a). Protected areas total about 110,000 square kilometers, and the important work of protecting them from encroachment and destruction is being aided by projects such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) work in a huge, 231,000-hectare national park in southern Sulawesi, Lore Lindu National Park (Mittermeier et al. 1999a). In cooperation with the government conservation agency and local groups, TNC is conducting a comprehensive education program that also encourages butterfly farming and ecotourism to stem forest clearing and rattan collection (Mittermeier et al. 1999a). Other programs to encourage ecotourism and create sustainable models for local economies have been launched. In some cases, international programs have failed. In the 1980s, the World Bank funded a program to protect a 300,000-hectare national park in northern Sulawesi and help local farmers irrigate rice fields while protecting the watershed. These worked at first, but enforcement lagged and gold miners have entered the park and poisoned rivers with mercury. Forest clearing, hunting and rattan collection have also occurred within the park (Mittermeier et al. 1999a). Emergency programs to stop incursions into national parks are needed.
A new and potentially major source of income to benefit wildlife and the environment involves the placement of videocameras connected to the Internet in wilderness areas. These cameras can be solar-powered and placed in tree tops, animal dens, waterfalls or other attractions. Such videocameras, using satellites to beam live pictures or web pages to Internet users around the world for a small fee, are helping to finance the conservation work of national parks in South Africa and Central America. Internet users have increased exponentially in the past decade and are expected to continue to grow in number. Many "surf" the Internet for amusement, while others seek wilderness views or natural history information. If the funds were managed so as to be devoted entirely to protection of the environment and related programs, many millions of dollars could accrue. A conservation organization could publicize the fate of a particular species, group of species or region to raise funds for its protection. Certainly Indonesia has hundreds of appealing animals. Orangutans, Sumatran Tigers, Proboscis Monkeys, gibbons, Babirusa, tiny deer, cockatoos and parrots (some as small as sparrows), birds-of-paradise, bower birds and Komodo Dragons are among animals that could appeal to millions of people around the world. Spectacular and magnificent coral reefs, ancient forests, giant flowers, carnivorous plants, mangroves and wild rivers could also be filmed for the Internet. An Internet site could have biodiversity data for students and the general public and lists of projects that need financial aid. Ecotourism opportunities could also be part of this site.
On behalf of American consumers and those in Japan and countries importing plywood and concrete forms from Indonesia, conservationists could approach importers, building companies, stores and builders to propose substitutes. In many cases, users of these products have little idea where they came from or the effect their purchase has on forests half a world away. The key to saving Indonesia's wild heritage lies in making it more profitable to conserve it than destroy it, and educating these already highly literate people to preserve their own future in the process.
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