Suriname: Southeast Asian Loggers' Latest Object of Desire
Tsuruoka, Doug
Suriname, the most densely forested country in the world, has attracted the interest of huge Southeast Asian logging companies. The country's lax forestry regulations put the rainforest-and the...
...It is billion-dollar logging companies from Indonesia and Malaysia which have contributed to the exhaustion of timber stocks in VOL XXIX, No 3 Nov/DEC 1995 7UPDATE / SURINAME A tree stump in Suriname...
...Enrique Iglesias, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is heading an effort to delay the signing of new forestry concessions for at least three years...
...Sibu sits at the mouth of the Rajang River, an immense watershed whose waters are choked with thousands of logs floated down from lumber camps deep in the interior...
...MUSA Indo-Suriname, a private Indonesian logging concern...
...Environmentalists and human rights advocates fear that these same loggers will wreak similar havoc in Suriname if their massive concessions are approved...
...The local economy is marked by corruption, a thriving black market, high unemployment, and chronic shortages of foreign currency...
...In Southeast Asia, logging's invasion of remote jungle hinterlands has undermined indigenous cultures by disrupting native agriculture and introducing a cash economy...
...Asia," says Dr...
...The Southeast Asian loggers, however, enjoy the backing of powerful ruling circles in Suriname...
...Uncontrolled tree-cutting would endanger the rainforest's rich biodiversity...
...Suriname isn't the only location being eyed by Malaysian and Indonesian loggers...
...The cash would be used to train forestry officers, help build the country's social institutions, and develop commercial alternatives to logging such as eco-tourism...
...This would obviate the extensive and environmentally damaging roadwork in the interior which would be necessary if the Southeast Asian concessions were approved...
...Fish and other wildlife have been wiped out by the uncontrolled logging, threatening the livelihood of local indigenous groups that have made the rainforest their home for centuries...
...Democratic rule was established in 1992 after nearly two decades of chaos and military coups...
...Evidence is also growing that such jungle areas will yield important weapons in the the fight against AIDS and other diseases...
...Suriname, the most densely forested country in the world, has become their latest object of desire...
...While the loggers from Southeast Asia are clearly the dominant players, a dozen other foreign firms-including two from South Korea and two from China-have also recently indicated interest in or formally applied for timber concessions in Suriname...
...These visits were underpinned by Indonesia and Suriname's historic links as former Dutch colonies...
...Suriname's impoverished government is mulling over the foreign logging proposals...
...he reason for Southeast Asian interest in South America's northern rim is simple: the timber supply is abundant and relatively unexploited, and the cost cheap...
...That aid could be used to build up Suriname's 150 existing forestry concessions, which are owned by local businessmen and have the advantage of being closer to coastal timber centers...
...They now seem to be looking to the pristine rainforests of South America to maintain their supplies and market share, and to diversify their investments with their tremendous capital base...
...Five other indigenous groups who rely heavily on hunting and gathering also live in the general area of the concessions...
...Hundreds of logging roads stretch like dirt-brown capillaries through the forests as far as the eye can see, and only "dead zones" remain in areas where giant stands of timber have been extracted...
...As those bauxite deposits become depleted, the most obvious natural resource for Suriname to tap is its huge Amazonian rainforests which blanket 80% of the national territory...
...This, in turn, could trigger severe conflicts...
...It is very important for us to make a good environmental study," says Franco Demon, Suriname's minister of natural resources, "because we don't want to destroy our forests-we want to use them in a sustainable way...
...Suriname, a country about the size of Nicaragua with a population of 400,000, gained its independence from the Netherlands 20 years ago...
...In addition, given Suriname's sizeable Indonesian, Indian and Chinese communities, forging business links with the mostly Indonesian and ethnicChinese loggers from Southeast Asia was relatively easy...
...Instead of opening up enormous new concessions to foreign investors," he says, "Suriname could use international assistance to avoid trading in its forest assets for quick cash and lasting disaster...
...The concessions would also swell Suriname's total round-log production by 15 to 20 times and multiply timber exports by 300 to 350 times...
...Inflation in 1994 was estimated at 642...
...Suriname-the former Dutch Guiana-is heavily dependent on raw-material exports-bauxite, for example, accounts for 70% of the country's export earnings...
...Suriname's parliament has created a special commission to look into the charges against MUSA...
...The arrival of the big logging companies is also sure to increase contact with what Brana-Shute calls "the Sodom and Gomorrah of coastal populations...
...The country's 45,000 Maroons-descendents of eighteenth-century rebel slaves-are subsistence farmers who have had little contact with the country's more cosmopolitan coast...
...After a feverish campaign by environmentalists and human rights activists this spring, Surinamese politicians temporarily placed the Malaysian and Indonesian logging concessions on hold, pending a review of more sutainable development plans...
...Flying low outside Sibu, an old logging town on the island of Borneo near the Philippines, the devastation of the once lush rainforests is unmistakable...
...The country's rainforests are home to 674 species of birds, 200 mammal species, 130 reptile species, and 4,500 species of plants...
...While their offers may sound appealing as a way to boost the country's sagging economy, they inevitably auger social and ecological disaster...
...As logging supplies in Southeast Asia dry up and governments in the region impose harsher regulations and even log-export bans, Southeast Asian logging companies have been forced to seek out new sources of fresh timber...
...The companies have asked Suriname's government to grant a total of nearly 12 million acres in timber concessions--a third of the country's total land area...
...Nigel Sizer, the author of the WRI report, considers the IDB proposal of international assistance the most environmentally sound option for Suriname...
...Suriname is also an attractive place for Southeast Asian timber barons to pursue their logging activities because of relatively lax forestry regulations...
...In Malaysia, fines and jail terms for illegal loggers were increased in late 1992, while in Indonesia forestry officials have revoked concession permits for a number of loggers...
...pealing and quick way to bring in much-needed foreign investment...
...It is rending their religion...
...Some officials, leery of the Southeast Asian bids, welcomed the WRI report, which was distributed to Suriname's parliament...
...Some Southeast Asian timber companies have in fact already been accused of improprieties while operating in Suriname...
...The concessions will likely undermine indigenous land rights since legal ownership of cultivated land is not well-established by the courts...
...The council of elders no longer has sway over the young, and people no longer exchange services...
...Indonesian-owned MUSA, which currently manages a 300,000-acre concession, has been criticized in the Surinamese press for negotiating contracts on the side with local community leaders to buy timber from communal lands at very low prices...
...The risks, however, to the country's vast rainforests and the human settlements that they support are great...
...Taxes on timber exports from Suriname are very low, amounting to just 5% of base value plus transportation costs-less than half the current world rate...
...Nigel Sizer, author of "Backs to the Wall in Suriname," a World Resources Institute (WRI) report published this April on the dangers of growing Southeast Asian timber interests in Suriname...
...Allegations of bribery and other shady dealings are rampant, and many observers fear the concessions will win parliamentary approval by year's end...
...The Southeast Asian timber companies are notorious for their devastating logging methods, which routinely involve wiping out whole sections of forest with little regard for official rules governing minimum tree-girth, species selection, or phased cutting techniques that would allow new trees to grow...
...The livelihoods of the 45,000 Maroons who inhabit Suriname's rainforest are threatened by Southeast Asian loggers...
...The impact would be disastrous," says E. Stanley Rensche of the non-governmental human rights organization Moiwana 86, based in Paramaribo...
...Suriname abounds in choice hardwoods known locally as "Purple Heart" and "Green Heart," as well as several types of mahogany...
...The government is offering generous contract terms to the foreign loggers...
...For one thing, the concessions will land on top of tens of thousands of small farmers and indigenous peoples including Caribs and Maroons...
...In his 1990 book, Rainforest Politics, Ecological Destruction in Southeast Asia, Philip Hurst estimates that 40% of all prescribed drugs in the United States are based on for8 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 0 C NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 8UPDATE / SURINAME mulas found in rainforest plants...
...For now, the Surinamese government is sorely tempted by the siren's song of the Southeast Asian loggers...
...These forests are not only important regulators of the earth's climate, but also reservoirs of genetic material which are critical to medical science...
...The tributaries which feed the Rajang River are contaminated by soil erosion, and are slick with the glow of diesel oil which seeps from the bulldozers of nearby logging camps...
...The concessions run for 25 years, and are renewable for another 25...
...If you look at the map, the living conditions of the indigenous and tribal people will be tremendously disrupted...
...The Southeast Asian firms would also pay only about three dollars per acre annually for concession rights, whereas comparable concessions in the U.S...
...Increasingly, it will become clear that their patrimony is being cut down and carried away...
...Consumerism has already started in Maroon society," says BranaShute...
...The Maroons do not have statutory title to their land," says Gary Brana-Shute, a George Washington University anthropologist who has carried out research in Suriname over the past two decades...
...Tax breaks will result in aggregate annual savings of $26 million over the life of the contracts...
...Pacific Northwest, for instance, would be ten times higher...
...In return, Iglesias promises to inject about $5 million annually into Suriname's ailing economy...
...The international assistance could also be mobilized to overhaul the way that Suriname administers and enforces its forestry laws and to institute farming-assistance programs for isolated communities like the Maroons...
...The country's lax forestry regulations put the rainforest-and the indigenous groups that live in it-at extreme risk...
...If approved, the new logging sites would total about 143% more in area than the country's existing 150 forestry concessions...
...They are also applying for 3 million acres in new forestry concessions offered by the Venezuelan government, and bidding for another $100 million in timber rights in neighboring Guyana...
...Most of the timber shipped from the new concessions would be destined for major wood-consuming markets like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China, where demand for raw timber and plywood is high...
...Supplying these markets has become difficult in recent years both because of shrinking forest reserves in the Asia-Pacific region and new government logging regulations that have been adopted or are being considered in such prime logging countries as Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands...
...and the Indonesian Suri-Atlantic...
...The country's historic obsession with resource-driven development has discouraged capital formation and the rise of value-added industries such as manufacturing...
...Three years ago, dissident Maroons ended an armed insurrection against the government under a peace treaty brokered by the Organization of American States (OAS...
...The groundwork for the Southeast Asian loggers' foray into South America was laid in 1993 when Suriname and Indonesia exchanged investment and economic missions...
...The Southeast Asian timber projects-with a total investment value of over $300 million-would provide ready cash for Suriname's hard-pressed economy...
...This logging method causes irreversible damage to water and natural-food supplies by destroying the tree-cover on which local ecosystems depend...
...Uncontrolled tree-felling in Suriname would endanger native flora and fauna as well...
...Suriname's dilemma stems from the fact that as a small nation with huge economic problems, the logging proposals seem to be an apDoug Tsuruoka is New York bureau chief of Asia Times, a newspaper based in Bangkok, Thailand...
...All these factors would allow the Southeast Asian companies to amass vast windfall profits...
...In Suriname, by comparison, the impoverished Forestry Service-presently made up of two professionals, one four-wheel drive vehicle, and two outboard-driven canoes-cannot adequately police the almost 60,000 square miles of forests...
...Because the concessions are so large, they have been submitted to the country's 51member parliament for approval...
...Malaysian and Indonesian loggers have formed three separate joint ventures in Suriname: Berjaya Timber Industries Suriname N.V., headed by Malaysian gambling tycoon Vincent Tan Chee Yioun...
...In Sarawak, Malaysia, violent clashes have erupted between loggers and the Penan indigenous group, who have been protesting the destruction of their food and water supplies...
Vol. 29 • November 1995 • No. 3
