Indonesia makes progress

Ian Duff's column in TTJ on the deportation of Greenpeace UK director John Sauven highlights a very real battle being fought out in Indonesia. He is right that the good intentions of the president are not matched by the immigration service. Refusing to allow Mr Sauven to enter the country certainly weakens Indonesia's otherwise excellent reputation for openness and transparency, and rumours abound as to the motives and forces behind this decision.

And as I sit in yet another world-beating traffic jam watching my ever-patient fellow Jakartans struggle home, I wonder how ordinary people here put up with the daily soap opera of corruption cases choking up the newspapers and the courts. Everyone seems to be at the trough – a recent report from the money laundering unit (BPATK) found over 2,000 relatively junior civil servants with million dollar bank balances from unexplained sources. And high international demand for Indonesia's natural resources (coal, palm oil, rubber, oil, gas, other minerals, timber) plus a construction boom and swelling government spending, is increasing temptation to grab what you can, and as quickly as you can.

But Rome was not built in a day, and Indonesia has come a long way since the end of the Suharto era 13 years ago. Yes, it was easier to do business here then – you paid one guy who dealt with everyone else in the machine, and off you went – but there was also a very real climate of fear and repression with people disappearing overnight and nobody asking questions. And the price of that bribe for the permit was only affordable because you could save on good forest management practice, and with future generations bearing the cost, even if you were effectively kissing goodbye to the timber industry itself. Where can you buy Indonesian plywood in the UK these days?

And as this real cost of corruption is becoming better understood, Indonesians are, I believe, becoming ever more vigilant and critical of government and industry, and expecting more. A collapsed bridge in Kalimantan cost 17 lives but the blame is being attributed to corrupt practices in construction 10 years ago and three suspects have been apprehended.

And there are real signs of hope in the forestry sector; for instance the minister of forestry recently turned down a permit to convert a forest to a mining operation, even though the company had paid off everyone else in his ministry. And bigger, more systemic changes will occur when the SVLK timber licensing scheme is rolled out, and companies are obliged to comply with the law for fear of losing export markets. Already over 140 have SVLK licences, covering 4.5 million ha of forest and over 100 factories.

Also multi-stakeholder spatial planning is starting to clarify and settle overlapping land and forest use rights, and at last a forest tenure reform programme is under way.

Ultimately, no amount of Indonesia-bashing by outsiders will improve matters. It will be Indonesians who determine their own path to prosperity and Indonesians who will decide what they want from their government or how their businesses should behave.

That said, it will still be international timber and palm oil importers that decide whether they think Indonesia’s natural products are too risky for their markets or for their reputations, and it is players like Greenpeace that most people still seem to trust!

All to play for in Indonesia in 2012.