In situ and Ex situ Conservation of Commercial Tropical Trees - ITTO

38IntroductionFor more than 30 years Indonesia, like many developing countries in Asia, hasutilized its forest resources for national development. At the same time a numberof conservation areas, such as National Parks, Biosphere Reserves, or ProtectedForests have been established in many provinces to protect ecosystems andthe biological resources they contain.At the global level, in the early 1970s the world community began tonotice a drastic decline in environmental quality due to the impacts ofdevelopment. Ever since the Stockholm summit meeting on human environment(1972), various concepts of sustainable development have been elaborated atthe global level. One such concept that is widely discussed is the socio-ecologicalsystem. In this concept, the inter-dependency among sub-systems, i.e.,environment, society, and economy is stressed (Gallopin et al. 1997). In manydeveloping countries, forests are one of the natural resources utilized for nationaldevelopment. Hence, forests have become a favorite subject of internationaldiscussions.Twenty years after the Stockholm Conference the world communitygathered in Rio de Janeiro (1992) to express concerns about the loss of biologicaldiversity. Their commitment to conserve biological diversity for sustainableutilization led to the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity. At thesame time, the world community agreed to handle matters on forests throughthe Statement of Principles on Forest Management, Conservation andSustainable Development (Watson et al. 1998).Indonesia was among the first countries to sign the Convention onBiological Diversity. However, only in late 1994 did Indonesia ratify theConvention through Act no 5, 1994. This Act signifies the political commitmentof Indonesia to protect the biological diversity within its territory not only forthe sake of Indonesia itself, but also for the world community. Soon it wasrealized that a political commitment at the global level alone is not sufficient toimplement obligations as a party to the Convention. Not only the complexity ofinstitutional arrangements contributed to delays in implementing the Convention,but also the fact that there is so much socio-cultural diversity throughoutIndonesia.To support its national development Indonesia relies heavily on its naturalresources. Even before its independence, estate crops such as tea, coffee,cacao, and rubber were prime export commodities. In the late 1960s, timberassumed the prime export role. And, unlike estate crops that have been cultivatedin plantation with a system of monoculture, most timber species are extracteddirectly from mixed natural populations. Because of the complexity of these