Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Academic questions whether Papua plan to stop log exports will work

Posted at 07:14 on 06 December, 2007 UTC

An Australian based academic has questioned whether a log export ban in Indonesia’s Papua region will be effective.

Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu says he will ban all log exports from next month, and all forest concession holders would have to develop wood processing facilities in Papua.

He says that the Bali climate change conference should endorse funding the anti-logging moves, due to its impact on reducing global warming.

But Arief Anshory Yusuf, a research fellow at the Australian National University, says previous bans on Indonesia’s log exports didn’t reduce deforestation.

He says the current ban could have the same effect in Papua, with the development of the domestic wood processing industry likely to drive deforestation rates up.

Mr Yusuf says the the negative impact of the ban would not just be environmental but developmental too:

“The development argument said that it would create employment but in fact the loss of empoyment frmo the logging sector is a lot more compared to the employment created by the wood processing industry, so the net effect is still negative.”

Arief Anshory Yusuf