Beschreibung:
In the late 1980s, large amounts of money and areas of Indonesia’s forestland were allocated for the development of fast-growing pulp plantations. The "financialʺ costs and benefits of this actionrepresenting only a portion of the actual totals can be easily accounted, while the full "economicʺ benefits and costs remain hidden. Knowing the net economic benefits can provide useful inputs for the Government of Indonesia and other interest groups to revise current policies or regulations and setting new directions for future plantation projects that benefit the national economy in the long term. This paper examines the total economic costs and benefits of five large pulp plantation projects in Sumatra, Indonesia. Four of the five plantation projects generate economic costs above their economic benefits. The estimated economic costs represent over 30 times the actual financial payments the Government receives from each company. The allocation of over 1.4 million hectares of forestland for conversion into tree plantations generates net loses of over US$3 billion for the country. This analysis clearly demonstrates that the Government of Indonesia should not allocate any more forestland for conversion into HTI pulp plantations.