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Tropical rain forest in Malaysia |
In December 1990, La Societé Verte applied to the Foundation for an amount of 15 million Danish kroner for an environment and research project: "Tropical Forest in Malaysia. Protection and improvement hand in hand with well-ordered economic utilization." The project wished to carry out a realistic rain forest policy which could prove that it is possible to fell trees in the rain forest without destroying it, and that one through the replanting after felling actually can preserve the natural cycles of the rainforest, and its diversity ofboth flora and fauna. The project would take place in Malaysia, in the state of Sabah, on the island of Borneo from 1991 until 1996. In order to understand a little about the society which constituted the frames around the project, andto better empathize with some of the difficulties the project ran in to, here follows a short description of the societal circumstances of this period. Sabah has an extraordinary nature with beautiful coastal lines, the highest mountain of South East Asia and fantastic rainforest areas. The capital in Sabah is Kota Kinabalu, a beautiful city by the coast of the South China Sea. From Kota Kinabalu there are flights to a number of other coastal town - Sandakan, Lahad Datu, Tawau - towns from where large quantities of logs are shipped to other parts of the world. Almost all of the inner Sabah is rainforest, and the timber sale and timber processing represent the most significant sources of income. The felling and the sale of the timber involved enormous amounts of money. There had to be bulldozers, specially constructed trucks which could transport the heavy loads, and there had to be camps made for the people felling the trees. There had to be shops where people could by their daily consumables. There were many to do the bidding, and often when a contract was to be signed, bribes determined who got it. Where the rain forest was cleared there were now large plantations of oil palms established; the former coconut and cocoa plantations lay deserted and became overgrown since the prices had dropped dramatically a few years earlier. The felling and sale of timber is a trade marked by enormous amounts of "fast" money. In Sabah, like in most other places, the tree felling started by pulling the very largest logs out of the forests closest to the coasts. The export of these brought immense profits - the greediness grew - more and more logs were felled; first only the logs down to 80 cm in diameter, thereafter down to 60 cm, and later all the way down to 42 cm, and then, well, some of the even thinner ones also went in the process. By 1990, the felling in Sabah had reached far into the forests, and it became more and more complete. The rainforest areas which were left behind could not reestablish their natural cycles and subsequently transformed into barren, poor pieces of land - pure desert. But the trade in wood was a reliable source of income for both the government and the individual politicians, so it continued at full speed. La Societé Verte had decided to make an environmental and research project right here in this wild forestry area - despite the difficult situation, of corruption, violence, embezzlement and unlimited amounts of different interests; since this was one of the places the forest was felled and destroyed. La Societé Verte saw the methodic extermination of the rainforest as a serious destruction to life on earth, but also realized that many of the countries who still had larger areas of rain forests, like Malaysia, were countries with a lack of sufficient sources of income. That meant, that the countries had, and still have, a dire need for the values which could be realized with the help of the raw materials from the rainforests. In the application it says: "One of mankind's obligations in the next 50 years is without a doubt the coordination between on the one hand the needs of the populations and on the other the earth's vital functions. The production of food, clothes, housing, and infrastructure in combination with nature's fundamental functions in a suitably undisturbed condition. Five thousand years ago the rainforest covered 14% of the surface of the earth. Today only half of it remains, and people are felling an area corresponding to 20 football fields per minute, 24 hours a day, every day - 5,5 million hectares per year. The extinction rate is increasing, and if this continues, the rainforest will be gone in 40 years. The rainforests contain more than half of all the known, living organisms. One hectare of tropical rainforest contains between 10 and 35 species of trees. A tempered forest by comparison normally contains two species on the same amount of space. The island of Madagascar has five times as many species of trees as all of North America. Panama has as many plant species as all of Europe. The number of insect species on one hectare of rainforest is so huge that no one has never succeeded to count it. Despite this fruitfulness, the soil which the rainforest grows on is generally very poor, thin, and acidic. The secret lies in the fact that the rainforest is a closed system. As opposed to a temperate forest, where almost all the nutrition exists in the soil, the rainforest gets app. 70% of it nutrients from living matter. As soon as a part of a living organism, a tree or a branch, falls to the ground the decomposition starts, and the process is accelerated by insects, fungi, and the high temperature and humidity present on the forest floor. The nutritionist within the dead parts are released and can be incorporated by the thick root stock that exist on, or just under, the thin layer of mull. Only 1% of the nutrients are lost. When people fell the forest, this cycle is broken, a scorching sun bakes the thin soil which is quickly eroded, and the area is left as barren, naked land. Slash-and-burn agriculture is responsible for 50% of the destruction of the rainforest each year, but the most significant economic cause of the destruction is the felling." Thus it was an important project which was about to start. It was to be a practical proof that it was actually possible to fell with a profit in the rainforest, and at the same time preserve and improve it. If the experiment was going to have an effect on the future tropical forestry, it had to be carried out in the same areas and in the same magnitude as there, where regular commercial forestry takes place. Thus it was here in the rain forests of Sabah, where the project wanted to get a license to fell trees in an area of 10,000 ha - fell to an extent which the forest could "handle," and at the same time make a nursery with the tree species which were cut down in order to plant new trees for each one taken down. At the same time the project would operate a saw mill and utilize the timber so that 20% more came out of it than normally in Sabah. This would be done by starting a production which can utilize the waste and the smaller pieces of wood, and to as great an extent as possible avoid loss. In addition the project would prove that the productivity is increased by educating the employees and securing that they had good social conditions - which is not a matter of course in Sabah, where most of the employees at this time were from Indonesia and the Philippines, and without any rights. In addition, the project would research into forestry projects which could form the basis for a timber industry, so that not all the raw materials had to come from the rainforest. All in all it was a daring project in a place where the rainforest was systematically destroyed by companies which sell logs for millions of dollars, a place where law and order is often replaced by corruption, threats, or huge promises - and it also quickly turned out that it could not so easily be done to get a logging license. La Societé Verte therefore chose another direction, namely to establish the saw mill first, create a production, and through this be able to appeal to the forest authorities to treat their application for a license. La Societé Verte worked together with a locally registered company, South China Sea Farming, to establish the saw mill and get the work up and running, but despite three years of insistent work to get the forestry license, it never succeeded. At the end of 1993, after three years, La Societé Verte chose to give up the project, since the main objective all along had been to prove that it was possible to log profitably in the rainforest and at the same time preserve it. Without a felling license this demonstration was impossible. Below we shortly tell about what took place with each of the four main objectives of the project: 1. To investigate the productivity and the profitability of saw mills,
especially for the purpose of utilizing the waste products. When South China Farming took over the saw mill it was in bad shape, it had app. 40 people employed, and was able to produce 800 m3 of sawn timber per month. South China Sea Farming made repairs and invested in machinery and equipment. There was light installed in the halls, the transport system was made more effective, and there was a processing area established. The pier was expanded and improved. This lead to an increase in the production from 800 m3 to 1,500 m3 per month in the course of 1991. But it was only in 1992 the production was stabilized, when the saw mill signed a regular contract for delivery of logs. During all of 1993 the saw mill made a smaller surplus; a new workshop was built, and a large ware house was erected by the pier, with space for 1,000 m3 of sawn timber. The goal was to increase the amount of products from a fixed amount of raw material with 20%. When South China Sea Farming took over the saw mill, the company invested in a machine which could make broom sticks, and a sanding machine for the same production with the intention to make use of those pieces of timber which were too small to be sold as sawn timber. There was also invested in a 4-headed molder for the purpose of producing other finished products from the waste wood. The saw mill also bought an especially large, mobile circular saw, which should be mentioned because the project wanted to try out a system with cutting the wood up while it was still in the forest, in order to minimize the loss. Normally all the waste wood is left in the forest, but now it could be cut up with such a mobile saw. Furthermore, the damage to smaller trees from pulling the large logs out could be decreased by cutting them up on the spot. In 1993 the saw mill started to experiment with a new raw material: coconut logs. Coconut timber has been used especially in the Philippines and in Indonesia as construction wood for floor- and wall coverings. No one had sawn and exported coconut timber from Sabah before, but as soon as the saw mill had begun, others followed. Coconut is a really good timber, which needs a slightly different processing than the better known timber types, but this did not cause any major problems, and with the increasing prices on timber there were many customers looking for cheap alternatives, and thus coconut timber founds its niche. So far the coconut trees had just stood and rotted without being used, so this production meant a new alternative to the rainforest timber, and this was even a product which would otherwise have been lost. Later the saw mill started in the same way to experiment with cocoa logs and logs from the shade trees which are planted between the cocoa trees. Also the cocoa plantations stood deserted. By time packing wood and pallet wood, and a large amount of wood for broom sticks, as well as a profile planed ceiling beam were sold. These were pretty small investments made to develop this side of the saw mill enterprise, but it worked, and the numbers show that with this minor input the production increased its amount of products by 10%. If the saw mill had continued, it would without a doubt have reached the 20%. When the project stopped, a drying kiln was in the process of being built, and with this one the project could have produced finger-joints for laminated wood and thereby ended up using all pieces of timber - also the very small ones. The saw mill also started a furniture production, which could have been developed quite far with the drying kiln. The example of saw mill spread - a new way was being paved. Even if there was a lot of rainforest in Sabah, everyone could see that with this speed of logging the fairy-tale could not go on forever, and the companies which had invested a lot of money in large productions were now looking at the saw mill and then did the same. Gradually there was also more and more discussion about prohibiting the export of rough sawn timber, so one had better start further processing. From an environmental point of view this meant that more and more came out of the raw materials which were being removed from the forests. 2. To create an increased productivity by educating the employees and improve
their social conditions
This meant that the health conditions among the workers improved significantly, and the fact that the children could go to school was something completely new and encouraging for the people employed. All in all, these initiatives meant an increased and more stable production, as well as a higher quality of the work. 3. To replant the cleared areas and 4. To establish protected areas and create economically healthy forest plantations. These two intentions were not tried out and achieved, since it never, despite a very inventive and intensive effort, succeeded to acquire a license for logging. Thus the project unfortunately had to be closed down, and in May 1994 the final report is treated and accepted by the Foundation's board of directors - and the unused money is thereafter paid back. The experiments at the saw mill had shown that a part of the waste timber could find useful applications, and that the coconut trunks, which previously had been wasted, could be included as a new raw material. The mobile saw had proven a more lenient process of felling, and the education and social programs for the employees had contributed to the increase in productivity. These experiments had a dissemination effect to other saw mills in the area. |
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