Deforestation "Indigenous knowledge, culture and traditional practice contributes to sustainable and equitable development and proper management
of the environment," 

"Irian Jaya is a very special part of our planet that contains a vast wealth of natural treasures which stretch out over horizons of the most prestine environments in the world. It houses the largest continuous tracts of undisturbed lowland rainforest in all of South-East Asia, and a biotic richness and diversity that is beyond compare. The province is one of the last great unknowns of the world, a challenge to understand, a challenge to explore, a challenge to develop, and a responsibility for all to safeguard its most important natural areas."
 Ronald G. Petocz, WWF representative in Irian Jaya during the early 1980s The island of New Guinea has one of the largest tracts of tropical rainforest left in the world,  second  only  to  the Amazon. West Papua's richly bio-diverse forests account for approximately  34.6  million hectares,  or  a  quarter  of Indonesia's total forested area of   143   million   hectares.
However, over 27.6 million hectares of forest in West Papua have been designated as production forest.
The Indonesian logging industry took off in the late 1960s when the hardwoods of Kalimantan and other islands were targeted as an easy source of revenue. Little thought was given to the fact that hardwoods are not a readily renewable resource, nor to the environmental implication of widespread logging.  This export activity was based on raw logs where little capital investment was required.
In the early.eighties the government banned the export of raw logs and encouraged the development of a large.  timber-processing  industry.Indonesia has become one of the world's largest exporters of plywood.A new phase for the industry is now planned with the development of a pulp and paper industry.
Between 1982 and 1990 there was an aver~e of 937,000 hectares of land per year being deforested in Indonesia. The current rate of clearing of Indonesia's forests by the timber industry as well as for shifting cultivation, agricultural development and resettlement, was estimated  by  the  UN  Food  & Agriculture  Organisation  and  the World Bank at somewhere between 8,600 and 10,000 square kilometres per year. A 1994 report by the World Bank, stated that "the major threat to the  sustainability  of  Indonesia's forests was timber cutting in excess of sustainable yields" As Indonesia's forest resources declined in Sumatra and Kalimantan (there is an estimated rate of deforestation of about 1.6 million hectares annually), the forestry industry targeted West Papua, encouraged by Indonesia's "Go East" development program. In 1993 only 7 per cent of Indonesia's logging concessions were in West Papua. By  1996 this had increased to 18 per cent.
Transmigration is also responsible for large areas of forest being cleared, and access roads open up previously inaccessible rainforest to exploitation.  Rainforest soils are poor in nutrients and the dry-land agriculture encouraged by the government is usually successful for only a few seasons.Settlers then clear more rainforest, to begin again, establishing a pattern of shifting cultivation. However, unlike the indigenous people who understand the local environment, they are contributing to land degradation.Timber tycoons Four  Jakarta-based  timber tycoons have divided the West Papuan   logging   concessions between them. This domination of the resource is being achieved with support from the Soeharto military government.