APPENDIX 1Table A.1: 4 million hectares of HPH's given to institutions of higher learning, for 'research and development,' and to pesantren and village cooperatives
Sources: (1) http://mofrinet.cbn.id/informasi/struktur/pejabat_dephutbun_3.html; (2) Departemen Kehutanan, Direktorat Jenderal Pengusahaan Hutan, Direktorat Bina Pengusahaan Hutan, 1999 (unpublished). As shown in the table on the previous page, the Department of Forestry has redistributed more than 4 million hectares, or about 1/13 of the nation's total area of natural forest timber concessions (HPHs). About 70 percent (nearly 3 million hectares) is going to colleges and universities, now known as land grant colleges as a result of the Department's newfound largesse toward them. Another 5 percent (200,000 hectares) is being set aside for the purposes of research and development. The remaining 25 percent (one million hectares) will go to pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) and village cooperatives, at the discretion of governors, as discussed on pages 58-59. With respect to the nearly three million hectares in HPHs whose resources are being diverted to universities, in only about a third of these cases is an outright handover of operating license occurring, according to the author's analysis of a subset of nine of the 33 HPHs listed on the previous page. In three of these cases, shares in stock were transferred to universities. In another three, partnerships were offered. Only in the final three did concessionaires actually surrender licenses to an educational institution. Nevertheless, this still constitutes a substantial transfer of forest resources to the academic community. Given that institutions of higher learning have typically not been found at the head of the line of favored recipients of timber patronage, it is worth asking why they have emerged as the primary beneficiaries in the current round of redistribution. As is the case with the granting of timber resources to cooperatives, it is possible that the Department is operating purely on the basis of social constructionist/idealistic motivations. However, in all probability, the current government is using the award of timber resources to universities to achieve motives that are more purely political in nature. In the short term, the government appears to be trying to quiet the voices of the segment of Indonesian society that has produced the most virulent criticisms of the current government, the academic community. In the longer term, the government is for all intents and purposes trying to put in place the material underpinnings for a pro-regime constituency within that segment of Indonesian society that has - time and again throughout the twentieth century - proved to be the wellspring of Indonesia's leaders, institutions of higher learning. One problem with this new arrangement is that institutions of higher learning, as well as pesantren and village cooperatives, lack the skills and capital to operate timber concessions. As a result, they will in most cases leave the logging of their new concessions to the timber companies with whom they jointly hold the concessions, or to those companies which until recently held those concessions.
September 7, 1999
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