Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 06/17/2010 10:28 AM
Indonesia should stop converting more than half of its forests if the country wants to keep its commitment to the moratorium policy it signed with the Norway government, and to domestic regulations, an official said.
An analysis by the Environment Ministry concludes the country must protect 72.5 million hectares of its forests along with peat land from business purposes.
Forestry Ministry data says that the country has 120 million hectares of forest, while data from the Environment Ministry shows that in 2009 the country had 93.83 million hectares covered with forests.
Masnellyarti Hilman, deputy minister for environmental damage controlling at the Environment Ministry said Tuesday that the analysis had been submitted at a Cabinet meeting.
The ministry assessed the impacts of a two-year moratorium on natural forest and peatland, forest regulation that banned the conversion of conservation, protected and production forest located with geographical sloping of 40 degrees and below and the 2007 spatial planning policy, which prohibited the conversion of forest areas sloping more than 40 degrees.
Indonesia suffered high deforestation with more than 1 million hectares per year due to rampant illegal logging and forest fires. The government targets to decrease the rate to 500,000 hectares per year from 2010 to 2014.
Indonesia and Norway signed a US$1 billion deal on reducing deforestation last month of which Indonesia pledged to impose a two-year moratorium on natural forest and peat conversion to help cut emissions.
The government of Indonesia would receive money from Norway based on emission reductions made in the country’s forest.
Masnellyarti said to keep the commitment, the Papua province authorities should maintain at least 28 million hectares of the forest untouched. The province of Kalimantan should protect 15 million of its forests from any conversion, while Sumatra province needed to maintain 12 million of its forest untouched.
A study by the Greenomics Indonesia said 711,971 hectares of natural forests in Riau were located in industrial forest concessions (HTI) and plantation areas.
“The moratorium deal between Indonesia and Norway could not stop the conversion of 711,971 hectares of natural forest spread across 34 HTI and 93 plantation areas,” said executive director of the Greenomics Elfian Effendi.
The NGO predicted natural forest in Riau could stock some 178 million ton of carbon emissions.
Elfian warned that the letter of intent between Indonesia and Norway could instead accelerate forest conversion with owners of concession areas converting their area before the moratorium policy takes into effect in 2011.
Masnellyarti said that incentives would be key to the success of the moratorium, to allow the provinces to develop its area for the sake of people’s welfare.
“We hope the moratorium on peat conversion helps cut the forest fires to meet the government’s target to slash some 20 percent of hotspots per year,” she said.
As of 2009, fire hotspots in forest areas reached 32,416, far higher than only 19,192 the previous year despite the government’s target to cut back the amount of fires.
