Pada 2003, ekspor kehutanan secara resmi dilaporkan sejumlah US$6,6 miliar atau sekitar 13,7 % dari nilai seluruh ekspor nonmigas. Ekspor itu terdiri dari kayu lapis, kayu gergajian dan kayu olahan US$ 2,8 miliar, pulp dan kertas US$2,4 miliar dan furnitur US$1,1 miliar dan sisanya berasal dari kayu olahan lain. Tetapi, menurut perkiraan CIFOR, karena tidak tercatat seluruhnya jumlah tersebut dapat mencapai lebih dari US$8 miliar.

Secara singkat dapat dikatakan, jika pemerintah mau menempatkan hutan-hutan yang rusak seluas 60 juta ha sebagai sebuah common property, dimana actor-aktor kecil diberikan hak-hak kelola jangka panjang, maka pengangguran dan kemiskinan dapat teratasi. Lebih dari itu, ketidakadilan pengelolaan sumberdaya alam, terutama hutan yang menimbulkan konflik, akan menurun.

Green Energy Resources cited the Center for International Forestry Research and the UK’s Department for International Development that $54 billion dollars will be invested in "cheap wood" sources by 2015.The investment reflects strong demand for a variety of renewable energy projects including ,biomass, gasification, co-firing, carbon sequestration and cellulostic fiber. The report in the June issue of "Environmental Finance Magazine" stated European financial institutions such as Dutch ING, ABN Amro and Rabobank,were investing aggressively in environmentally responsible wood supplies.

Same story also appeared in Sys-Con Media website.

Additionally, rainforests are being cut down at an extremely rapid rate to both pasture cows and grow soybeans to feed cows. The clear-cutting of trees in the rainforest — an incredibly bio-diverse area with 90 percent of all species on Earth — not only creates more greenhouse gases through the process of destruction, but also reduces the amazing benefits that those trees provide. Rainforests have been called the “lungs of the Earth,” because they filter our air by absorbing CO2, while emitting life-supporting oxygen. “In a nutshell,” according to the Center for International Forestry Research, “cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil’s Amazon rainforests.”

South East Asia Germany (SEAG) berkolaborasi dengan Perum Perhutani mengadakan pelatihan bertema ”Integrating Approaches to Achieve Multiple Goals on Sustainable Forest Management” di Semarang, 19-20 September 2006. Acara itu dibuka Vice Head Unit I Perum Perhutani Ir Bambang Setiabudi MSc. Pembicara utama Philips Guizol dari Centre of International Forestry Research (CIFOR) dan Head of Corporate Planning and Development Perum Perhutani Sadhardjo Siswamartana.

Deforestation and the activities that lead to it are not the only culprits. Sijeruk village sits below a densely forested hill. The Center for International Forestry Research conservation group has said that instead of logging, exceptionally long and heavy downfalls, which saturated the forest soil until it was unable to absorb any more water, were responsible for the landslides. But both experts and environmentalists agree the loss of forest cover does humans harm. Of the 162 million hectares of forest in Indonesia today, the second largest tropical forest in the world after Brazil, 59 million hectares are damaged, endangering not only biodiversity but also the global ecosystem. Climate change and global warming are some of the indicators of the world’s disrupted ecosystem.

The Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association (APKI) is upbeat that the industry will be able to phase out the use of timber from natural forests and convert entirely to the use of timber from forestry plantations by 2009, as required under a 2004 decree of the forestry minister. Bambang Setiono, an analyst from the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor), said 60 percent of raw materials for the pulp and paper industry came from natural forests adjacent to forestry plantations in 2005 and the first part of this year.

Different versions of this story also appeared in Kompas, Bisnis Indonesia, Koran Tempo, Republika, LKBN Antara, Investor Daily and Media Indonesia

Pusat Penelitian Kehutanan Internasional (Cifor) menolak kritik pemerintah Indonesia terkait dengan kinerja mereka di bidang penelitian kehutanan yang lebih terfokus ke masalah sosial dan isu sensitif di negeri ini. Cifor malah yakin, penelitian mereka dapat membantu negara berkembang memperoleh manfaat ekonomi yang lebih besar dan lebih lama dari sumber daya hutan.