Timber Concession Reform: Questioning the “Sustainable Logging” Paradigm

Since the mid-1980s, policy discussions aimed at promoting sustainable forest management in Indonesia have focused almost exclusively on re forming the Hak Pengusahaan Hutan ([HPH] Forest Concession, Forest Exploitation Rights) timber concession system. ¹ This emphasis on HPH reform is hardly surprising given the pressures that Indonesia's commercial logging industry has put on the nation's forests over the last three decades. Since 1967, when the New Order regime opened the rich Dipterocarp forests of the Outer Islands to large-scale timber extraction, the Government of Indonesia (GOI) has allocated a total of 585 HPHs, covering 62 million ha, to private and state-owned logging companies (Brown 1999). According to official figures, HPH holders generated 612 million m³ of roundwood between 1970 and 1999, or 20.4 million m³ annually for 30 years. Some industry analysts have argued that actual timber removals by HPH holders during this period were, in fact, approximately twice this volume (Kartodihardjo 1999a; see Chapter 7 of this book).