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Quality data for forest management
Indonesia still experiences massive illegal deforestation and to restrain such action, data serves as an integral element in creating effective monitoring and law enforcement systems.
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Indonesia still experiences massive illegal deforestation and to restrain such action, data serves as an integral element in creating effective monitoring and law enforcement systems. (Shutterstock/Rich Carey)
T
his year’s World Environment Day on June 5 adopted the theme of “Connecting People to Nature,” which highlights the importance of forest management to support people’s livelihoods. Millions of Indonesians are heavily dependent on forests for food, clean water, income and energy, which makes sustainable forest management an important task.
For energy, especially, forests play a critical role. As an enormous source of clean and renewable energy, forests provide electricity for basic human needs.
Biomass, for instance, could be generated by converting crops such as wood, bamboo, jarak tree and sugar using low-emission technology. Forests also hold potential for realizing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ambition to achieve 100 percent electrification by 2019.
However, spatial analyses by multiple sources indicate that most areas near forests lack access to electricity, including the 2,500 households close to forested national parks.
Meeting the ambitious electrification target and providing electricity in those remote areas would require more than the state electricity company PLN’s central power system and network. As President Jokowi said during his visit to Maluku, it is challenging for an archipelagic state to possess a national network from Sabang to Merauke.
The construction of electricity transmission and distribution networks from Java, Bali, or Sumatra to other islands can hike electricity prices and sharpen the imbalance in the cost of electricity production between western and eastern Indonesia.
Thus, it is important for each island to have its own independent power plant, as well as transmission and distribution networks.
