Foreign Report Under Scrutiny, Observers Say Indonesian Wood Industry Declining Foreign Report Under Scrutiny, Observers Say Indonesian Wood Industry Declining

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID,JAKARTA -- Forestry observer Petrus Gunarso highlighted The New York Times investigative report on the involvement of the American recreational vehicle (RV) industry in the deforestation of Kalimantan tropical forests. According to him, it does not fully reflect the actual conditions of the Indonesian forestry industry. According to Petrus, the term "deforestation" is often loosely used by international NGOs to describe changes in land cover, even when natural forests are replaced with industrial plantation forests (HTI). "What is deforestation? It is a change in land cover from forest to non-forest. If it is from natural forest to a monoculture, WWF still calls it deforestation. But if it is replanted with eucalyptus or acacia, is it still called deforestation? In Indonesia, it can be harvested in six years. In Norway or America, it takes 40 years to be cut down. The tropical and subtropical contexts are different," Petrus said during a discussion at the ...