Group warns deforestation could lose RI foreign fund

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 04/28/2007 3:31 PM  |  Jakarta

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

El Nio, which is likely to affect Indonesia again this year, could hamper the government's pledge to reduce 50 percent of forest fires unless the local administration starts taking action to curb deforestation, leading green group warned Friday.

The WWF Indonesia said that if the government failed to meet its target, it could lose reforestation fund pledge by other countries.

The group's program director for climate change and energy, Fitrian Ardiansyah, said that El Nio, which severely affected the country in 1997, resulting over 110,000 spot fires, would enlarge the forest fire coverage.

""The most worrying trend now is the increase of forest fire occurrence in peatland areas in the last two years. If it happens this year, it will be difficult for the government to realize its 50 percent target.""

In dry conditions, said Fitrian, peatland areas are very easy to burn, yielding three times the normal level of greenhouse gas emissions.

The WWF's data show fires in peatland areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan have covered average 32.1 percent and 25.1 percent of the area in the last 10 years.

The worst seasons were in 2005, when fire coverage in Sumatra reached 68 percent and in 2006 in Kalimantan, when it reached 39 percent.

In 1997's El Nio, forest fires hit about 10 million hectares, causing financial losses of US$3 billions. The huge forest fires released greenhouse gas emissions of up to 2.57 giga tons, or equivalent to 40 percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions produced by fossil-based fuels per year.

The government said that it would reclaim 500,000 hectares of peatland in Central Kalimantan for agricultural use and plantations while another 600,000 hectares of the peatland was to be conserved for ecosystem balance.

Globally, a reforestation drive is on the rise in bid to slow greenhouse gas emissions and human-induced climate change.

Indonesia, home to the world's third largest tropical forest after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is now formulating a proposal to earn money from reforestation.

The proposal, which will be presented at an international conference on climate change in Bali this year, will urge rich countries to provide financial assistance to protect Indonesia's forests.

""The financial assistance could be realized if Indonesia can show strong evidence of its efforts to save the forests,"" said Fitrian.

On a visit to Indonesia earlier this year, Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, urged rich nations to provide around US$10 billion per year to stop deforestation in developing countries such as Indonesia.

According to the latest report from the World Bank, the British Department for International Development and the consultancy company Peace, Indonesia has become the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitting country, after the United States and China.

Much of these gases are released from the destruction of the country's vast tropical forests.

Yearly emissions in the U.S. are 6,005 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), while China releases 5,017 MtCO2e. The majority of the emissions in both countries come from energy use.

Indonesia's yearly emissions are 3,014 MtCO2e, with land-use change and forestry alone estimated to account for about 2,563 MtCO2e, or 83 percent of the total emissions and 34 percent of global forestry emissions.

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