Exploitation a threat to biodiversity in Siberut island

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

There have been studies about the scale of deforestation in Indonesia’s tropical forests. Most of these studies present a gloomy picture.

 In January 2003, for example, Forest Watch Indonesia announced deforestation in the country was worsening. Some 2.4 million hectares of forest vanished in 2002 compared will two million  the previous year, it said.

 This natural disaster is continuing. It is not only happening to forests on big islands but also on smaller islands like Siberut off West Sumatra province.

 The situation is even more dire because deforestation also harms numerous species.
 “The (forest) exploitation in Siberut has caused a decrease in the primate population over the last
two decades,” said Jatna Supriatna, regional vice president of Conservation International Indonesia, at a recent discussion.

 There are four endemic primates in Siberut, all of which are endangered. They are the Kloss Gibbon/Bilou (Hylobates Klosii), Mentawai Langur/Joja (Presbytis potenziani), Pig-tailed langur/Simakobu (Simias concolor) and Bokkoi (Macaca siberu).

 Jatna blamed the situation on the government’s development approach that focuses on large-scale logging.

 Three forest concession (HPH) holders — PT Cirebon Agung, PT Carya Parmin Pulau Siberut and PT Kayu Siberut, have been operating in Siberut since 1972.

 In two decades, they have cut 1.7 million cubic meters of timber. “We can imagine the scale of destruction on the habitat of fauna,” Jatna said.

 In 1992, the government banned commercial logging on Siberut. However, seven years later the government revived logging activities.

 Koperasi Andalas Mandiri (KAM) was the first firm to receive a new forest concession. It started logging in 2002, while PT Salaki Summa Sejahtera is in the process of getting a license.

 To curb the pace of deforestation, Jatna suggested that the government develop other forest-related sectors as sources of income.

 Jatna mentioned the possibility of developing ecotourism in Siberut, called
by biologists “The Galapagos of Asia”.

 “If Ecuador can develop the Galapagos into an attractive tourism site, why can’t we do the same with Si-
berut and Mentawai islands?” he asked.

 Ecuador is not the only country to develop ecotourism. Some African countries have reaped big money from ecotourism.

 Former environment minister Emil Salim agreed with Jatna, saying the government should not focus solely on logging as a source of income.

 “We have to convince the government that our tropical forests have abundant resources — not only timber. So we must not focus only on logging,” Emil said.

 Taking an example, Emil mentioned the bark of certain trees is  able to heal diseases. He also said leeches could help cure vertigo.

 “We have the natural resources. Unfortunately, we don’t have  the will (to utilize them),” Emil said.
 Known for its stunning biodiversity, Siberut is home to 896 species of flora, 31 mammal species (65 percent of which are endemic) and 134 species of birds (19 percent of which are endemic).
 In 1981, UNESCO declared Siberut a biosphere reserve and the government developed part of the island as a national park in 1993.

 Despite concerns from conservationists, Forestry Ministry  official Sunaryo emphasized that the ministry is concerned with both the utilization and conservation of the forest.

 “We have to make an assessment first. Then we can produce a win-win solution,” he said.
 The danger is clear. Whether Siberut can be preserved depends on the decision-makers.

Improving land value the best solution to annual fire headache

Erik Meijaard, Jakarta

Fires are back as a major news item. They do that pretty much every year. Fires and haze are nothing new to this region with reports of thick smoke from Kalimantan dating back to 1877.
The regional aerosol index, kept since 1978, also shows that about every three years parts of Indonesia and neighboring countries are covered in thick smog. Still this is probably the worst fire and haze episode since the 1997 events that burned so much land in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The causes of fires are very complex. Basically in Kalimantan and Sumatra anyone seeking to increase the value or fertility of land, or lay claim to it, and finding it well stocked with dry biomass, will torch it. Fire “cleans up” the vegetation structure and increases soil fertility, if only briefly, and thus allows the planting of rice, oil palm and many other crops.
Fires in Indonesia are unlike those in countries like Australia, the U.S., or southern Europe. In those countries, the person with the match will rarely lay claim
to the burnt land or start planting crops. In Indonesia, however, economic reasons play a much bigger role as causes of fire.
For example, people here burn to increase access for fishing, or to capture land turtles, or plant hill rice. Or they burn their neighbor’s land
if there is a conflict over ownership. Or they lay claim to land which wasn’t originally theirs, as burning establishes such unofficial claims. Finally there is small or large scale land clearing for commercial enterprises such plantations.
Many of the fire debates that have recently appeared in the national media focus on the ‘who is to blame’ question; small holders or agro-industrial plantations. In a way that distinction is rather unhelpful. For over two decades environmental groups have been calling for the prosecution of arsonists, especially the industrial-sized ones. Without law enforcement the ‘who burned’ question is largely irrelevant. I think the ‘why’ and ‘where’ offers more likely solutions.
Let’s delve a little deeper. There must be some pretty simple numbers underlying fires. If a farmer owns a garden with durian trees that result in an annual income of Rp 5 million (US$560), he will fight very hard to protect his garden against fire, unless he expects the burnt land to generate more than Rp 5 million per year. Similarly, a timber concession with 50 cubic meter of harvestable timber per hectare worth $5,000 will not allow that to go up in smoke. This may only make economic sense if after burning, the company is allowed to salvage log all timber and subsequently plant industrial crops. Only then the resulting annual income from the land may surpass the value potentially derived from sustainable timber harvest.
So one of the logical solutions to the fire problem would be to ensure that the present value of natural vegetation or crops is higher than that of the land post-burning. And it is easy to see that this is likely to work. Most fire hotspots this year occur outside forest areas in land that was already degraded.
They are thus not really forest fires, but more often scrub or grassland fires, or fires on degraded peat lands. The best prevention of fires is thus to ensure that high value forests are maintained or high value crops are planted. If local stakeholders then have clear ownership over these resources they will protect them against fires. The larger picture of this is an accelerated sustainable development of forestry and agriculture. At least it would offer real solution to the fire and haze problem as well as many social and economic issues.
In addition, a prohibition on crop planting on burnt land would make law enforcement much easier. In that case the burden of proof becomes lighter. There is no need to prove who did the burning in the first place. There only needs to be a link between the presence of crops and the evidence of recent local burning. If such links exist, crops may be destroyed by the law enforcer.
Such laws can be phased in slowly maybe by first focusing on large areas of burnt land. This would quickly stop industrial burning, and in the longer term reduce slash-and-burn agriculture. At the same time, there should be a concerted effort to promote crop development on degraded land to raise its value and thus provide the incentive to protect it against fires. There are plenty of ways to do this without resorting to fire.
The legal framework for all this exists in Indonesia. There are laws against burning and there are laws against forest conversion. Clearly laws on land tenureship require updating giving real security to whoever manages the land. And there should be species focus on peat burning which probably causes most of the smoke and leads to rapid environmental degradation of these sensitive ecosystems.
Accurate spatial information is also needed, allowing the government to conduct spatial planning that is in
line with those laws. An
area of dense natural forest should never be earmarked for oil palm. A large area
that was burnt this year should not have extensive pepper gardens, rice field, or Acacia plantations.
In the end all this remains theoretical without the political will to change it. Luckily the international pressure is on and Indonesia will have to get their act together. Investing heavily in cloud seeding or water bombers might give the right sound bites but it will not solve the problem.
Continuing the debate on farmers versus companies is also not going to clear up the skies. Taking away the financial incentive for burning is the most likely way of preventing further environmental disasters like the one Indonesia forces onto its neighbors year in year out.

The writer works as senior forest ecologist at The Nature Conservancy. He can be contacted at emeijaard@tnc.org. The views expressed here
are his own.

Spanning glass wire till needed

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, The Jakarta Post

For most of us, it is not often that we get invited to a dinner on board a ship. So, when Alcatel invited some twenty journalists including myself to have a break of the fasting on top of one of their cable-laying ships, named the Ile de Sein, I jumped at it right away.
While the dinner was great, as it was prepared by Indonesia’s culinary guru William Wongso, it was the opportunity to learn how the submarine cable was laid on the seabed that was the main attraction for me.
With so much attention given to the wireless technology lately, we may have forgotten the role of the submarine fiber optic cables.
The fact is that these cables are still the backbone of telecommunications infrastructure. There was perhaps a time when people thought there was a glut of submarine cables in the world, but new demand for high speed Internet connections has created a soaring market for submarine cables.
In addition, the use of terrestrial fiber optic cables is also picking up pace. In more advanced countries around the world people already have Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.
An FTTH provides a high speed broadband pipeline into a box that will then distribute the connection to the individual houses.
In countries like Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and certainly the U.S., FTTH has enabled e-learning, online television (IPTV) and other services that require speed above one megabyte per second.
Worldwide, however, the fiber optic (FO) cables are used as backbone infrastructure rather than the last-mile connection.
To drop the cables in the right places on the seabed, highly specialized ships are needed, and the Ile de Sein is a vessel with state-of-the-art equipment for undersea cable installation.

The Vessel
A lot of us may have forgotten that the first long-distance submarine cable was laid by the French in 1869. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Brest on the Western
tip of Europe with Duxbury, Massachusetts.
It comprised copper strands, of course, as the fiber optic technology did not then exist. It also carried an analog signal – mostly telegraph – as digital computer came much later in history.
So, it has been almost one and a half centuries since the first submarine cable was installed. The cable laying vessel that Alcatel invited us to clearly demonstrated how challenging the task is, even with so much technology in use.
Ile de Sein is one of the three cable laying ships that Alcatel currently operates. A massive ship, it was built in 2002 in Korea along with her two sisters the Ile de Brehat and the Ile de Batz.
During the tour, I was continuously impressed by the cleanliness of the ship, although, I was told by the Captain, she has to be on the sea for months at times.
The ship, 140 m long and 23 m broad, has two cable tanks where the cable is stored before being pulled out into the sea. Each tank, 7 m high and 19 m in diameter, can carry up to 700 km double-armored cable or 5,000 km of lightweight cable.
The total cable payload that the vessel can carry is 5000 tons. I was surprised to be told that they actually had to place the cable inside the tanks manually to avoid problems during deployment.
The first place we were brought to in the tour was the ship’s bridge. This is the place where the captain controls everything, including the cable laying work.
A very interesting part is the Dynamic Positioning (DP) System. As cable laying is a high precision task, most of the time, the ship should be held in the same position even when they are confronted with raging tempests or high waves.
“We will still be able keep this ship in position in up to Seastate 7,” the Captain told us.
This becomes even more imperative during repair work, as broken cables have to be reconnected. The ship can only sway one meter to each side at the maximum, and this can be achieved only with the DP system and the four propellers and thrusters on the sides of the ship. “Every computer on this ship has a backup,” the Captain said.
A survey team also works with a number of computer terminals at the back of the bridge. Keep in mind that every submarine cable installation project must begin with a survey on the seabed.
Sonar tools are used to measure the depth of the water, the topology, the undercurrent, etc. The cable route has to strictly follow the result of the survey.
If the route encounters a plunge in the seabed, then the fiber optic cable should also go down the entire depth of the trough. The survey team continuously makes sure that the cable is laid in the right place.
A 30 ton plough at the back deck of the ship will be lowered to the seabed to perform the cable installation.
Normally, the plough can bury the cable one meter deep under the seabed, but in places where the cable should go deeper an additional tool will have to be attached to it.
The cable is then buried three meters deep to avoid being hit by anchors or fishing trawls, for example.
The connection is constantly tested to ensure that there is no problem with signal transmission. Repair is costly and time consuming, so problems should be detected as early as possible. On the ship there are rooms where the testing is conducted and the repair`splicing’ is done.

Java to Other Islands
Alcatel, the French giant with offerings that cover all the three telecommunication infrastructure technologies – terrestrial, satellite and submarine – has a 41 percent share of the market for submarine cable installation.
“Since they were first operated, our three cable laying ships have been fully booked to carry out projects all over the world,” explained Jan Glinski, President Director of Alcatel Indonesia, during the interview on board the ship.
Immediately after the dinner, the Ile de Sein was on her way to Singapore and then to Europe where another big project was already waiting.
The Ile de Sein has just finished two projects for Indosat, which were to build the cable infrastructure called Jakasusi and Jasutra.
The first connects the islands of Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi while the latter is the extension that connects Java and Sumatra.
The new infrastructure will be used to provide more services to the other major islands of Indonesia. So, although not as fast as we would like to see, the development of the infrastructure will provide the other islands with improved access.

IBM software for everything you have to do

Budi Putra, Contributor, Jakarta, bp@budiputra.com

Do be aware that today IBM is not just a hardware company anymore. It has sold its PC Division already to a Chinese computer maker Lenovo. Yes, you got right: the Big Blue has shifted its mission and vision. Just consider.
In its latest round of acquisitions, IBM continues the battle for ownership of the best software and content companies in the world.
Why does IBM want to be a service company? Is it true that the future of IT will much rely on software, content, business consulting and service? Could the other big boys deal with the IBM way?
I met Erwin Sukianto, Country Manager, Software Group, PT IBM Indonesia in his office recently. He shared his valuable insights on the company’s maneuver to make sure that the company is already on the right track.
“The reason is clear. We want to offer a high value business, instead of a high volume business,” he revealed. That’s why, he explained, “IBM is totally a service company now.”
Answering my question on the acquisition, he said that IBM tries to group all things. The outcome is almost perfect.
“Other competitors all had products, features and services like we have. IBM’s latest deals already leapfrog those things.”
IBM’s software business itself is growing and profitable. “Acquisitions play a key role in IBM’s software business,” Sukianto added.
There are at least two primary reasons behind it: To get a jump-start into emerging markets and to fill gaps in its existing technology portfolio.
Through acquisitions, IBM seeks to fill decisive, missing pieces of technology into its portfolio; increase market share; and greatly spread out the reach of acquired middleware to new customers.
IBM is positioning itself for the long-term by connecting acquisitions to the high-value, innovation segments of the IT industry, such as Service Oriented Architecture, Information on Demand and Systems Management.
“So don’t miss out on IBM software for everything you do. The IBM software portfolio is a comprehensive and integrated set of solutions based on open standards,” Sukianto said. There are five brands offered: DB2, Lotus, Tivoli, WebSphere and Rational.
DB2 Universal Database is the database management system that delivers a flexible and cost-effective database platform to build vigorous on demand business applications.
The DB2 Universal Database family also includes solutions tailored for specific needs like data warehousing or high-volume transaction systems.
Based on collaboration and human interaction, Lotus Software offers Application Development and Portal, Learning Software, Messaging, Real-time and Team Collaboration, E-forms, documents and Web Content Management and Mobile Messaging. Got Linux? You can run your messaging and collaboration on Linux with Lotus Domino.
Tivoli Software offers Security, Availability, Application Management, Business Service Management, Orchestration & Provisioning Management, Storage & Optimization and zOS. Use IBM Tivoli Composite Application Managers, for instance, for WebSphere to help manage your WebSphere applications.
Unlock the power of SOA with WebSpere easily and seamlessly. This application serves Application and Transaction Infrastructure, Application Transformation, Business Integration, Commerce, Mobile and Speech Middleware, Portals and Product Information Management.
You can use IBM Rational Method Composer to create your organization’s unique SOA governance framework. Rational Software offers applications like Requirements & Analysis, Design and Construction, Software Quality, Process and Portfolio Management and Software Configuration Management.
According to Sukianto, the five major portfolios are built to cover and manage three main areas: Namely people, process and information.
“IBM realizes that no sooner do you undertake one pressing problem than another takes its place. That’s why we never stop working on developing software that helps you endorse the business priorities you have today and the ones you’ll face tomorrow,” stated Sukianto.
IBM recently announced it has completed its acquisition of FileNet Corporation, a publicly held company based in Costa Mesa, California, in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately $1.6 billion, or $35 per share.
According tech reporter Sarah Lacy of Business Week, the FileNet acquisition diverges from IBM’s recent buying spree. This deal brings IBM key customers and market share, according to Jim Murphy of AMR Research.
IBM is the third biggest player in the document management market, frequently competing against FileNet or EMC’s Documentum division for deals. With one $1.6 billion move, IBM will gobble up the number two player to jump ahead of EMC. According to IDC Research, last year EMC had 11.3% of the $3.2 billion market. FileNet and IBM combined make up some 18%.
With the recent announcement, IBM has completed 20 strategic acquisitions in support of its cross-company Information on Demand effort. Since 2001, IBM’s Software Group has acquired 36 companies.
IBM also announced recently it has completed its acquisition of MRO Software, Inc., a publicly held company based in Bedford, Mass. IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire MRO on August 3, 2006. MRO’s operations will be integrated into IBM’s Tivoli software business.
MRO’s asset and service management software and consulting services are used by many of the world’s top companies to effectively manage how they buy, maintain and retire assets in a wide variety of industries including utilities, manufacturing, energy, pharmaceutical and telecommunications.
This acquisition builds upon IBM’s strategy to leverage business consulting, IT services and software to develop repeatable tools that help clients optimize and transform their businesses.
In last August, IBM and Internet Security Systems, Inc. also announced the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Internet Security Systems, Inc., a publicly held company based in Atlanta, Georgia, in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately $1.3 billion, or $28 per share.
This reinforces IBM’s position in the rapidly growing area of Managed Security Services — the acquisition is subject to Internet Security Systems, Inc. shareholder and regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
ISS provides security solutions to thousands of the world’s leading companies and governments, helping to pro-actively protect against Internet threats across networks, desktops and servers. ISS software, appliances and services manage network vulnerabilities and exploits and rapidly respond in advance of potential threats.
Previously, IBM announced it had acquired Webify Solutions, an Austin, Texas-based, privately held provider of industry-specific software and services for building SOA.
This acquisition builds upon IBM’s strategy to take advantage of its strengths in business consulting, IT services and software to develop high-value, repeatable tools that help companies optimize and transform their businesses.

The writer is journalist and author. He can be reached at his blogs theasiatech.com and 3gweek.net.

Utomo Dananjaya: The man behind breeding of prominent figures

Alpha Amirrachman, Contributor, Jakarta

Talk with 70-year old Utomo Dananjaya, and you will feel his warm and witty candor.
However, despite his lively mind, the man who has organized Majelis Reboan (Wednesday Discussion Forum) for more than 20 years seemed to realize that his age is running fast and that it is timely for him to step down and let a younger generation take over the forum.
Perhaps he is aware that at the end of the day his physical condition may not be reconciled with his often burning enthusiasm.
During a recent Mejelis Reboan, Utomo grabbed the microphone and talked briefly before the audience. The man whose smart jokes often cracked the atmosphere when a debate was getting tense, now spoke solemnly about his plan.
In a society where patronage is difficult to unlock, younger members often still push senior figures to maintain the leadership.
However, he assured The Jakarta Post during an interview at his office in Wisma Kodel here that some activists whom he has been nurturing and who always help him run the forum have declared their readiness.
“Since its inception in 1983 as a loose, non-structural and informal forum, the forum was intended to enlighten people and to strengthen harmony by adhering to the spirit of diversity and pluralism,” he said, adding that the forum should maintain this spirit.
The speakers and audience include intellectuals, student activists, bureaucrats, politicians, and professionals who also come from diverse religious backgrounds.
For example, one of the speakers that evening was a young Catholic priest. Some from the audience were Ahmadiyah members, who have been accused of spreading false Islamic teaching and have been recently subject to humiliation from the Muslim majority.
Several influential figures who had actively participated in the forum include Muslim intellectual and activist Masdar F. Mas’udi, Djohan Effendi, the late Ekky Sjahruddin, Abdurrahman Wahid and Moeslim Abdurrahman.
Non-Muslim intellectuals include Franz Magnis Suseno, Harry Tjan Silalahi, Ignas Kleden, Mudji Sutrisno, Jakob Oetama, the late Victor Tanja and many others.
Now, a new generation of intellectual figures have lightened up
the forum, including Lutfi Assyaukani, Ioanes Rahmat, Yudi Latif, Andang Binawang, Hamid Basyaib and others.
Majelis Reboan is the embryo
of the renowned Paramadina Foundation, which was co-founded
by the late noted Muslim intellectual Nurcholish Madjid and Utomo himself.
“It was very personal initially,” recalled Utomo. “When Nurcholish completed his doctorate from Chicago University, activist Ekky Sjahruddin came up with an idea of forming a group of discussion to welcome him.”
“And it was Masdar. F. Mas’udi of the Nahdlatul Ulama who named this group Majelis Reboan, as it should meet every Wednesday,” said Utomo, who is also known for his superb organizational skills.
“Abdurrahman Wahid would talk about politics, and after Maghrib (dusk prayer) Nurcholish would talk about religion and spirituality,” said Utomo, adding that the two were the “fuel” of the forum.
The forum roared to prominence after the election of Abdurrahman Wahid, (who later became the country’s fourth President) as a chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama in the Situbondo congress. The Kompas daily described the forum in its editorial as a group of young intellectuals and activists who were still pure and modest but were concerned with the development of the nation, said Utomo.
Didn’t the authoritarian Soeharto’s regime suspect this forum of having the potential to shake the establishment?
“I don’t think so, probably because this forum also promoted diversity and pluralism, so it was somehow in line with the New Order’s stand,” said Utomo.
“We always maintained our position, that the azas tunggal (referring to Pancasila as the state’s sole principle/ideology), is for the state, but a nation could have more than one ideology. So we always say Pancasila was an open ideology, and Soeharto didn’t seem disturbed.”
Concept of sole ideology received strong opposition from some other sections of Muslim communities in the 1980s, many of whom were jailed by the New Order. And Soeharto perhaps never realized that the forum helped strengthen civil society, which 20 years later helped his downfall.
“You may say it is an elitist group; but its members were all people who were strongly rooted in societies such as Abdurrahman Wahid, Ekky and Masdar. So they passed the ideas and messages they got from the forum into their respective communities.”
Some members of the forum suggested that a foundation be established to help build an inclusive Islamic civilization. With Utomo’s support, Nurcholish helped draft the constitution of the Paramadina Foundation, which later became a core engine for the reformation of Islamic thoughts in Indonesia.
It was also Utomo, then Public Relations Manager of the national arts center Ismail Marzuki Garden (TIM), who gave a recommendation to a commission of the Jakarta Arts Council to give Nurcholish a chance to speak at the influential TIM speech forum.
History tells of how Nurcholish’s speech on secularization provoked intense polemic and rocked the intellectual and religious circles at that time.
Born Feb. 6, 1936 in Kuningan, West Java, Utomo completed Elementary School in 1951, high school in 1957, and IKIP (Institute of Pedagogy and Teacher Training) Bandung in 1965.
He became a public junior high school teacher in Garut (1957-1964) and Bandung (1964-1966). But he left his teaching when he became Chairman of the Muslim Indonesian Students (PII) organization from 1967 to 1969.
“Being a Chairman of PII was a turning point in my life,” said Utomo. “I was transformed from an extremist to a moderate Muslim.”
PII also collaborated with the American Field Service (AFS), sending it best cadres to the U.S. to stay with American host families for a year in the country. Poet Taufiq Ismail, educationalist Arief Rahman, former minister Tanri Abeng and businessman Soegeng Sarjadi were among them.
In addition, Utomo was known as a “master of training” at the Institute for Research, Education, and Information of Social Study and Economics (LP3ES). He trained groups of activists from various non-government organizations.
Utomo is not only an aspirant that helped breed prominent figures; he is also an outspoken educationalist whose critical thoughts are influenced by those of Ivan Illich and Paolo Freire.
He described that education in this country has been severely reduced by a corrupt mentality, as it has been managed by people who are obsessed with nothing but power; not by those with proper knowledge, experience and commitment in education, he said.
But his idealism of education faced unprecedented challenges from some sections at the very university he helped establish: Paramadina University.
Utomo was forced to swallow a bitter pill when what he perceived to be a conventional lower level education was to be used in the graduate program at the university.
He retreated and decided to establish the Institute for Education Reform (IER), which is still
under the university. One of its missions is to advocate for teacher professional development and autonomy by providing alternative educational policy.
Associations such as the Independent Teacher Forum of Indonesia (FGII) and Education Forum are among those receiving support from the IER.
Utomo — now a man with nine grandchildren — never lost his
high spirit. Nonetheless, he eventually realized that everything has
its limits.
After all, many of his able
cadres that have spread in various sections of society are assured of the continuation of his idealism of a diverse nation whose members equally contribute to the development of the country.