Case 3 – Forestry and Integrated Nature Conservation issues:

SFM Certification of (Teak) Plantations a) The Case

In the year 2000, some of the 57 Forest Management Districts (FMDs), namely FMD Madiun, FMD Cepu-Kebonharjo-Mantingan, FMD Lawu Ds and FMD Kendal were applying for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) certification under Smartwood as certifier. Those first three FMDs are all located in the BS Basin.

Based on the public summary on SFM Certification Program in Perhutani released by SmartWood¹⁷ (2000a, 2000b, 2000c), various information can be acquired focussing on the forest management (control) system, the arrangement of forest functions related to biodiversity issues and environmental impacts in particular, as well as social aspects:

Concerning the forest management (control) system, Perhutani follows a strict planning regime. With respect to silviculture, all FMDs follow Perhutani’s management principles that are formulated in the Jakarta headquarter and conveyed to the Unit and from there to the FMD. Detailed plans are handed down through the chain of command with little modification.

All districts share the same procedure, implicating little differences between FMDs in terms of management, planning, operation, staffing etc. Further uniformity in management is ensured by the rotation of district administrators and other senior staff every 3 - 4 years. This reinforces a very homogeneous approach with planners and operation managers taking little consideration of local conditions. Usually, local variation is more noticeable with respect to social aspects rather than due to environmental differences.

The following findings are related to environmental impacts and biological conservation for each assessed FMD:

1) FMD Madiun

The Madiun FMD is located in Unit II (East Java). The upland area has traditionally been non-productive for agriculture due to steep topography and poor soil conditions. The teak plantations which constitute the bulk of Perhutani’s holding occur at altitudes of 600 m and upward. The total area encompasses 31.264,3 ha consisting of production forest, protective areas and special purposes areas. Based on the planted species, this FMD is divided into 2 main classes, namely teak and eucalyptus which cover about 27.528,2 ha

17 SmartWood is an accredited certification body by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Perhutani chose the certification program under the SmartWood program to recognize conscientious land stewardship through independent evaluation and certification of forestry practices. The purpose of the assessment was to evaluate to what extent Perum Perhutani's districts are managed in an ecologically responsible, economically viable and socially responsible manner.

(88%) and 3.736,1 ha (11,9%) respectively. Some other species have been planted in small amount: Swietenia spp. (mahagony), Dalbergia latifolia (sonokeling) and many others.

According to SmartWood (2000c), the forest is non-contiguous and highly fragmented into more than 20 patches. Two ‘nature reserves’ have designated by Perhutani. As known, Perhutani does not responsible on conservation area. The category of Nature Reserve is under conservation function (see Table 4.5). In addition, these nature reserves have reported

‘no appropriate nature conservation management’ and there is also no interference from Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA).

One in the sub-district Bungus is dominated by teak and does host some wildlife such as kijang (deer), wild pig, wild chickens, tiger, snakes, birds and monkeys. Activities to support the conservation of animal species by an inventory of wild animals, hunting control and researches are still limited and corridor concepts for landscape based ecosystem conservation of wildlife are still not well known. No data baseline on biodiversity on the landscape level is addressed nor measures against human pressures that have seriously undermined the biodiversity.

Also riparian protection is still not implemented in the respective FMD. The designated riparian buffer zones where timber harvesting is prohibited and the great diversity of native tree species shall be preserved were neither clearly marked in the field, nor in maps.

2) Cepu-Kebonharjo-Mantingan FMDs

Cepu FMD, Kebonhajo FMD and MantinganFMD are located in Unit I (Central Java).

These three FMDs consist of natural and plantation teak stands and a smaller portion of other mixed hardwood species. Again, the upland areas have traditionally been non-productive for agriculture due to steep topography and poor soil conditions. Each area is dominated by production forests: Cepu 92,5%; Kebonhadjo 92,9% and Mantingan 97,8% of the total area 33.109,9 ha, 17.653,8 ha and 16.535,1 ha respectively. Nearly 100% of the production is teak. Other commercial species include mahagony (Swietenia spp.) and sonokeling (Dalbergia latifolia).

According to SmartWood (2000a), these FMDs show similar conditions like the Madiun FMD: insufficiently contiguous blocks for wildlife protection, rather limited activities to support wildlife protection. No adequate attention for riparian corridors along permanently flowing streams.

3) Lawu Ds. FMD

Lawu Ds. FMD is managed by Unit II (East Java), an area that has traditionally been productive for agriculture due to volcanic activity and generally good soil fertility. The total

area covers about 51.348,9 ha of production forest (47,4%), protected forest (51,5%) and special purpose land (0,01%). Differing from the above mentioned FMDs, the dominant species is pine as a resource for timber, softwood pulp and fibre, turpentine and gondorukem. Other commercial species are mahagony, albizia, and sonokeling. Pinus merkusii junghet devries (also called Tusam) was chosen because of its ability to colonize degraded land and to grow rapidly across many climate types and a wide range of soils.

According to SmartWood (2000b), the Lawu forests provide potential ecological functions, particularly for watershed protection, carbon sequestration, mitigation of soil erosion and other. The original pine plantations were planted is mixtured with rasamala, puspa and others. Some endangered species like peacock, lutung monkey (P. comata), Panthera pardus, Gallus gallus, barking deer have been reported. However, the forest management regime tends reacting neutral or passively to wildlife. An increasing pressure on the forests is caused by local people due to grazing, fuel wood collection, hunting, non-timber forest product collection and the desire to change pine plantations into agricultural fields.

The major portion of Lawu FMD is protective forest. The need for hydrological protection with respect to spring water is accentuated for this area. Activities to support wildlife protection lack the same attention like in the FMDs mentioned above.

b) Conclusions and recommendations concerning forest functions arrangement and management

The uniformity of instructions for state forest management still leads to systematic failure concerning forest functions arrangement, at least with respect to integrated conservation issues. Their consideration, apart from traditional forest production has been initiated late and the respective decrees are substantially inadequate and do not follow a modern approach of landscape based population ecology.

Potential nature protection functions have been recognized with respect to swamp forests, watersheds, coastal areas, including their threatened, rare, endemic or endangered species. Hunting those species at riversides, lakes dams and watercourses has been forbidden, while Perhutani has been asked to develop and improve strategies and additional provisions concerning wildlife management and nature protection planning and monitoring.

Conventionally, timber is the particular target commodity from forest plantations that are usually planted as monocultures which are considered as ecologically inappropriate due to their rather limited biodiversity. Nonetheless, cultivated landscapes and manipulated forests like teak and pine forests also do function as important habitats for various animal species and diverse plant communities that have been pre-adapted or acclimatized to more than hundred years of plantation management. Undoubtedly, there are many ecological

differences between plantations and natural forests. But essential conservation opportunities will remain disregarded if the simplifying view is adopted that plantation is ‘bad’ and natural forest is ‘good’. Instead, plantation management needs to integrate nature conservation issues and determine factors to increase habitat diversity on the landscape scale, for instance by leaving the non-commercial vegetation along streams and rivers instead of clearing it uselessly. Although plantations can never fulfil the same role like natural forests do, there is no reason to abandon them and forget about their habitat function. In fact, where plantations replace critical grasslands, ecosystem complexity rather increases. Plantation species should also be considered because they may have desirable ecological effects, for example to soil characteristics, transpiration etc. Furthermore management objectives should not only consider production but also ecological aspects of species selection (Whitten et.al 1997).