I personally welcome the policy on
banning of peatland conversion (“Govt says no to converting peatland
into plantations”, Aug. 23) to other land uses and I do hope the
government is serious and consistent with its policy.
However, apart
from banning the conversion of natural peat swamps and forests, I
strongly urge the central government to pay serious attention and to
implement serious efforts in rehabilitating and restoring the former One
Million Hectares Peatland Project in Central Kalimantan (the so-called
ex- Mega Rice Project).
As the central government was the creator of
this terrible project, they must take responsibility to rehabilitate
and to restore this degraded ecosystem.
The ex-Mega Rice Project has
created huge economic, sociocultural and environmental negative impacts
to the local people for more than 10 years and the central government
has done little on the ground to resolve these problems.
If the
Indonesian government will adhere to its commitment to reduce CO2
emission up to 26 percent by the year 2020, about half of this target
can be achieved just from dealing with the ex-Mega Rice Project.
With
regard to the criteria of peat conservation based on the depth of the
peat, the regulation needs to be revised, as this criterion is
scientifically unjustified and awkward. The proper criteria are
dependent on the type of subsoil underneath the peat. Although the peat
depth is just half a meter, for example, the subsoil underneath
constitutes a sand layer, thus we need to protect this kind of peatland;
otherwise we will create a new desert should we convert it.
As for
the government policy on ecosystem restoration, with particular
reference to the peatland issue, if this policy is applied to the peat
swamp ecosystem, it will create a new problem. Ecosystem restoration
only applies to land with production forest status, not with
conservation and protection status, which means that ecosystem
restoration is intended for increasing forest production in the future
e.g. timber.
If we promote the ecosystem restoration approach within
the peatland/peat swamp forest ecosystem, it will in jeopardize all our
efforts to protect the peat swamp forests in the future. It is better
to do nothing on the peatland/peat swamp forest ecosystem, if we think
of what the policy would really mean.
Alue Dohong
Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan
