Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, an environment minister under then president  Soeharto, said on Tuesday that the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding agreement produced by the Copenhagen climate meeting, recognized Indonesia’s proposal on reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

The world’s recognition of REDD became  point six of the Copenhagen Accord, which also recognized the need to provide incentives to countries with forests through the immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus, to enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries.

“This is an opportunity for us and our forestry companies, to invest in forest preservation projects to benefit from the REDD mechanism,” Sarwono said, adding that the United States, European Union and Japan  were all committed to providing financing for REDD.

However, Sarwono warned that Indonesia, as one of the initiators of the REDD mechanism, must be consistent in its forestry policy.

“Once we implement REDD projects, we cannot anymore allow uncontrolled illegal logging. That kind of leakage will not be acceptable to the global community,” Sarwono said.

Indonesia is the most active among forest countries in producing a regulatory framework for REDD.

The Forestry Ministry, for example, has issued a number of regulations to facilitate private investment to benefit REDD financing.

In the past, Sarwono said, the Forestry Ministry only issued licenses for forest exploitation and forest conversion.

“But now, with the new regulations, private companies can invest in forest conservation,” he said.
Sarwono, who is also an adviser to the Eka Tjipta Foundation, called on local forestry companies such as those of the Sinar Mas Group to start investing in forest conservation.

Sulistiyanto, managing director of the Sinar Mas Group, responded positively to Sarwono’s recommendation, saying that it would convert some of its forest concessions into forest conservation projects.

Sulistiyanto noted that Sinar Mas has developed a total of 122,000 hectares of forest conservation areas inside its industrial forest concessions in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

These include the 72,000-hectare Giam Siak Kecil-Bukit Batu biosphere reserve in Riau, the 20,000 hectares Senepis reserve in Riau, the 10,000-hectare Taman Raja reserve in Jambi and the 20,000-hectare Orang Utan conservation area in PT Surya Hutani Jaya’s concession area in East Kalimantan.

“Currently, we still have 16,000 hectares of industrial forest concession in Pelalawan, Riau, belonging to PT Putra Riau Perkasa which we also want to convert into a forest conservation area,” Sulistiyanto added.

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