Our Publications

Adding value to sustainable forestry operations. It is difficult for

environmentally sustainable forestry operations to be financially sustainable.

In the tropics, for example, clear cutting/burning to make way for industrial

oil palm plantations is tempting. See areas colored red in map of Indonesian Borneo.

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Consulting to The Nature Conservancy Indonesia, we found a new revenue sources

for financially-distressed sustainable natural forestry concessions in Borneo’s

Mahakam River Basin.  We investigated using logging waste to make wood pellets

that could be used in place of coal in power plants, thereby doubling the profit of

forestry companies that supply the waste wood.  Our work was done in two phases. 

First, we performed a detailed investigation of the full value chain of costs and

revenues for natural forest timber concessions together with an investigation of

specific river basins and concessions where use of waste wood would change

sustainable forestry economics:

“Study of sustainable forestry in Indonesia and blueprints for improving profitability.”

 

Second, we performed due diligence and a pre-feasibility study on an existing

manufacturing facility that could be re-purposed for wood pellet manufacture: “Mahakam River Forest Biomass Processing Facility Feasibility Study.” Our investigations revealed that so doing is financially feasible, but that Indonesian regulations for proper documentation of waste wood removed from in-forest operations need to be changed.  

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Supporting reforestation in the tropics by forest communities.  Hidden in plain sight, forest farmers in Indonesia contribute as much to the nation’s economic growth as the nation’s industrial timber sector, on only one-sixth of the land area.  With the UK Department for International Development’s Multi-Stakeholder Forestry Program 1, we co-authored, “Welfare Gains of Returning Forest Areas to Community Management.”

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Quantifying the deforestation impact of globally traded commodities.

- We performed a “Forest Futures Analysis” which looked at how three different scenarios (‘business as usual,’ ‘plantations only,’ and ‘balanced restructuring’) would impact upon Indonesia’s long term forest sustainability over a quarter century.  Work resulted from collaboration between the UK Department for International Development’s Multi-Stakeholder Forestry Program 1 and the USAID’s Forest Management Program 2.  See “Timber Industry Revitalization in Indonesia in the First Quarter of the 21st Century.”  

- We undertook a deep dive into the supply chains of each of Indonesia’s pulp and paper, plywood, and sawn timber manufacturing groups, and quantified the percentage of uncertain-origin (possibly illegal) and unsustainable timber consumed by each group, as well as each sector.  See the UK Department for International Development’s Multi-Stakeholder Forestry Program 1 publication, “From Darkness into Light:  The Consumption of Timber of Uncertain Origin by Indonesia’s Forest Products Primary Processing Sector.”

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 Combatting illegal logging.

- With WWF Indonesia, we led a field investigation that showed that a major pulp and paper company was logging in a protected forest, and had high amounts of uncertain-origin or unsustainable natural forest timber in its supply chain.  See “Legality of Timber Consumed by Asia Pulp and Paper’s Mills in Indonesia: January – October 2003”

- We led a World Bank Indonesia field investigation that showed that a company called Duta Maju Timber was illegally logging inside of Kerinci Seblat National Park.  See “Kerinci-Seblat Integrated Conservation and Development Project:  Field team report on PT. Duta Maju Timber.” Kerinci Seblat, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry’s "State of Indonesia Forests 2020," is only one of two landscapes on the face of the earth where Sumatran Tigers “are viable and will be extant in the next 100 years.”  B2E2 served as the English language editor for the first two editions of this publication.

- B2E2’s influence is measured not only by its publications, but also by those who use the information that B2E2 generates. To give an example, one out of six of the 218 endnotes in the report Partners in Crime: A Greenpeace Investigation of the Links Between the UK and Indonesia’s Timber Barons cites publications by David Brown.

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Combatting transfer pricing, and promoting better due diligence practices by banks which lend to timber companies.

- One of the principals of B2E2 works as a UN Development Program (UNDP)-financed advisor to the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) of Papua New Guinea (PNG), under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) program. In this clip from PNG’s TV One, see the Deputy Prime Minister of PNG introduce David’s team to reporters.

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