Europe must show more commitment to stop legal and illegal logging in the forests of Indonesia

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) sends an appeal to the European Union to not only fight logging in the rainforests of Indonesia, but also to take action against the legal deforestation. "Tens of thousands of indigenous people living in the Indonesian woods are at least as seriously threatened by the officially approved logging as by the predatory practices of the timber mafia," said the STP's Asia-correspondent, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Tuesday. Thus, the governor of the Moluccas had recently authorized the clearing of another 500,000 hectares of forest on the Aru Islands to the east of the country in order to set up sugar cane plantations. The EU and Indonesia signed an agreement against illegal logging on September 30, 2013.

The major project will destroy about 70 percent of the forest on the six larger and the 174 small Aru Islands. According to the plans submitted by the Indonesian investors of PT Menara, there will be 28 farms, each stretching over 11,600-20,000 hectares. The project will destroy the last mangrove forests of the Moluccas, which provide an effective and natural protection from natural disasters. PT Menara – previously mainly active in the banking sector – already has a dubious reputation because the company is currently clearing 400,000 acres of forest to set up oil palm plantations in neighboring West Papua.

Several thousand indigenous people, members of youth organizations, students and citizens from 117 villages on the Aru Islands led public protests against the project in late August and in September 2013. Many of the 83,000 islanders are complaining that the realization of the project will probably destroy their livelihoods. The leaders of the indigenous peoples who live in and off the forests accuse the investors and the authorities of violating Indonesian laws. The natives were not informed about the plans prior to the Governor's decision – and there were no environmental impact studies. During a public protest, Roup Opem and other mayors declared: "As representatives of the citizens of the Aru Islands, we strongly reject the sugar cane plantations planned by PT Menara".

Only about 15,000 of the 83,000 residents of the Aru Islands belong to non- indigenous communities. Although Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country, about 90 percent of the residents of the Aru Islands are Catholics and six percent Protestants. The islands are part of the predominantly Christian Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands.