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  Antara 17 Sep 06
IMF, WB also responsible for forest destruction in Indonesia

Batam (ANTARA News) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) are two institutions allegedly engaged in destroying the forests in Indonesia and in other developing countries.

"The role of the IMF and WB is in the channeling of funds to companies engaged in investment without first studying the impact of the application of their policies," Greenpeace activist Red Costantino said in a meeting on "International People`s Forum Versus IMF and WB" here on Sunday.

It was also said that because of large scale forest destruction, a change of the world climate happened following the cutting and exploitation of many system-balancing forests without proper study and control.

"Those forest destroying companies are funded by the World Bank. Greenpeace calls for a stop to such logging activity," Constantino said.

On the same occasion, Director of the Indonesian Forum on Environment (Walhi), South Sumatra chapter, Berry Bahdan Forqan said that in that province forest distruction could be found anywhere and a bigger threat would happen if the World Bank as well as other financing institutions failed to stop their financial assistance to the companies in question.

Walhi had a list of companies engaged in forest destruction including the pulp and paper industry PT. Marga Buana Bumi Mulia (MBBM), wooden chips industry PT. Mangium Anugerah Lestari (MAL), pulp supplier PT Hutan Rindang Benua (HRB) and industrial estate forest company HTI.

All of them are sister companies of the United Fibre System (UFS), a foreign consortium of eight countries which has its headquarters in Singapore.

In 2002, PT. Marga Buana Bumi Mulia and PT Mangium Anugerah Lestary in cooperation with PT Hutan Rindang Banua supply pulp, raw material for making paper. PT. Hutan Rindang Banua said it has around 268,585 hectares of forested land in 2002.

While the company claimed it had reforested about 75,758 hectares of land, it turned out that only 41,212 hectares had been reforested.

Accordingly, the World Bank should stop providing a loan to paper producing companies in Indonesia, because the company planned to produce 600 hundreds of pulp per year in Cuka River, Tanah Buntu dsitrict. (*)
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