T

he Indonesian government is committed to reducing carbon emissions due to deforestation and forest degradation. President SBY said in Copenhagen that by 2020, Indonesia would reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent on its own, or 41 percent with the financial help from international donors.

Forestry Ministry Zulkifli Hasan has proposed three programs to achieve the emission reduction, namely reducing deforestation, which is now estimated at a rate of 1.08 million hectares per year, replanting damaged forest as much as 500,000 hectares per year through several schemes, including social forestry and developing industrial plantation forest.

The question is: can we do that?

So far, the Forestry Ministry has succeeded in protecting the legal status of forest areas. Only a small fraction of forest areas have been converted for other land use. But, the Ministry has failed to maintain the forest coverage.

In Indonesia, there is a difference between forest and forest areas. "Forest" is an ecological term, referring to a type of ecosystem dominated by trees. A relatively large city park and abandoned traditional plantation may be categorized as forest. "Forest area", on the other hand, is a legal term.

According to the forestry law, forest area is legally defined as any given area designated by the government to be maintained as permanent forest area.

In reality, forest area may not be forested. Many villagers find forest area borders within their kitchens. Even the whole village, including houses and school buildings, can be found within the forest area.

Based on its functions, forest area in Indonesia is divided into three categories: production, protection and conservation forest areas. During the New Order regime, all forest areas were managed by the central government, namely the Forestry Ministry.

Unlike other departments, the Forestry Ministry has an authority over 120 million hectares of Indonesian land, designated as forest area.

Since the autonomous era began, the central government has delegated the management of production forest and protection forests areas to regional administrations, but the regulation is made by the Forestry Ministry.

During this autonomous era, the Forestry Ministry has little power to control the production and protection forest areas, because district heads and provincial forest offices are more loyal to the regents or governors who appointed them to power.

In addition, the persons appointed as district heads or provincial forestry offices are not necessarily foresters. They, in turn, appoint officials who are not foresters either. As a result, many protection and production forest areas are now managed by non-foresters who have no emotional bond to forest areas or to senior foresters at the Forestry Ministry.

It is understandable that the head and staff of district and provincial forestry offices have low motivation to protect forest areas. Illegal conversion of forest areas may occur easily.

Another factor contributing to this is the fact that many production forest areas were exploited excessively during the New Order regime and were not productive when the autonomous era began, and consequently did not generate income to local government. Many governors have submitted requests to the Forestry Ministry for converting forest areas in their regions for other land use.

The ministry is currently reviewing the proposals, but it is unlikely that all the requests will be approved. Whether or not the ministry approves the proposals, however, in reality illegal conversion has been occurring. The Ministry of Forestry has very little power to protect the forest areas from encroachment.

The Ministry of Forestry has also failed to grow forest. For several decades the ministry has tried to rehabilitate damaged forest in forest areas through reforestation program and plant trees outside forest areas through the afforestation program. Social forestry, involving local people in creating community forest, has also been conducted for more than a decade.

During the presidency of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the reforestation and afforestation programs were revitalized and renamed the Rehabilitation of Forest and Land Movement. In 2009, the ministry introduced a slogan: One Man, One Tree.

This year the President has targeted to plant 1 billion trees. Every year, millions of seedlings are distributed and billions of rupiah are disbursed to no avail. An anecdote says, had these programs been successful, not only the land, but the ocean of Indonesia would have been forested.

From an ecological point of view, growing forest in Indonesia should have been easy. Having a humid and warm climate, most undisturbed Indonesian land would become forest naturally.

Furthermore, natural forest doesn't need intensive care as agricultural plantation does. Growing forest using appropriate species will require moderate care only during early years. When the trees reach a certain height they can grow on their own.

Why, then, have we failed to create forest? The reason is clear: we don't let the trees grow. The villagers get little economic benefit from the trees they have planted, so they will not let the trees survive, outgrowing their crops.

They have difficulty selling tree products. Even if they planted trees on their own land, selling their own timber requires costly and time-consuming legal permits. In some cases, people are arrested for carrying timber from their own land because they don't have the legal permits.

Unless the local people and government receive economical benefits from growing forest, the plantation of a billion trees will not increase forest coverage as the trees will not reach maturity.

It is, therefore, not sufficient for the Forestry Ministry just to provide seedlings and financial assistance for planting. It should also simplify the bureaucracy for selling forest products from the community forest.

If growing forest is economically profitable, the community will voluntarily do it, within and outside forest areas. Illegal conversion of forest area will decline too.

As a result, the total coverage of forest can be much larger than the legally designated forest areas and it will be more possible for us to achieve the target of reducing carbon emissions.