Over-cutting the forests of Indonesia, Philippines and Sabah (Malaysia) - Essay Example

Yet, clear cutting, deforestation, and over cutting of the timberlands has resulted in severe shortages of lumber in countries such as the Philippines where 9 percent of the forests were cleared in the period 1980 thru 1990 (Ascher 13). There are a myriad of forces at work that create a climate where short-term gain outweighs the sound long-term management of a countrys natural resources. Flawed government policies and a failure to understand the implications of the economic driving forces has resulted in forest ove4r cutting in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

The generic and overly simplistic viewpoint that over cutting the forests in under-developed nations is a combination of greed, corruption, and ignorance marginalizes the effect of government policy. While it is true that these can have a significant effect, such as Malaysia where over $1 billion was unaccounted for in 1994, it is more often the well-intentioned, though misguided, government policies that result in forest mismanagement. In addition, governments have failed to enact strict enforcement and accountability policies that would limit the influence of special interest groups and hold government officials more responsible for the budget.

Ascher illustrates the extreme case of Indonesia where President Suharto engaged in the "off-budget pursuit of development strategies ranging from downstream wood products to aerospace" as well as "…motives such as political campaign finance and personal aggrandizement" (81). The redistribution of resources without sound budgetary control disrupts pricing as well as contributing to over production. One of the more clearly misguided efforts at managing the forestry sector output has been the proliferation of export bans of raw timber around the world.

The Indonesian economy lost $400 million in 1981-82 when it banned the export of raw timer in an effort to spur