F

orestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan says the government will recycle old permits and allow the conversion of up to 3 million hectares of forests into plantations – despite a recent moratorium.

The forests in question were comprised of 3 million hectares of reserves in Sumatra and Kalimantan, among other places, that were previously licensed to companies that had yet to begin operations.

“We gave licenses to 251 companies who should have converted [the forests] to sugar cane plantations about five, six or 10 years ago, but they never did,” Zulkifli said during the opening of the IndoGreen Forestry Expo 2011 on Thursday.

The ministry’s forestry planning directorate has since revoked the licenses, Zulkifli said.

“We will offer [the licenses] to businessmen who are ready to invest, especially in sugar cane plantation business, to reach Indonesia’s target of sugar sufficiency, or the crude palm oil business,” Zulkifli said.

The government would stop issuing new concessions to forest logging companies for the next two to four years, as required by a climate deal with Norway, he added.

“We’ve already provided forest concessions for 26 million hectares of our forests within the last 30 years. We’re not going to give any more concessions in the next two or four years and we won’t expand it,” he said.

The Forestry Ministry would provide concessions for forest restoration only, he said.

The minister also called on logging companies to implement sustainable forest management practices.

“With sustainable forest management, 26 million hectares are more than enough for the production needs of forestry companies,” he said.

One million hectares of industrial forest managed with sustainable forest techniques could yield the same amount of timber that could be culled from 5 million hectares of natural forest, he said.

“That’s why I call on forest production companies to apply the principle of selective logging and replanting in their logging activities.”

Greenpeace Indonesia forest representative Zulfahmi said Zulkifli’s plans would not affect Indonesia’s carbon emission reduction efforts – and might make matters worse if the 3 million hectares up for grab were natural forests.

Environmental activists agreed that many neglected licensed forest areas were comprised of natural forests.

Zulfahmi told The Jakarta Post that capping logging forest concessions at 26 million hectares would do little to decrease the country’s deforestation rate.

“[Zulkifli] still has to evaluate existing forest licenses,” he said.

Zulfahmi said some of the licenses violated existing forestry laws.

“Some [licenses] opened peatlands; others, natural forests. So the revocation will not necessarily contribute to emission reductions in Indonesia.”

“These kind of licenses will potentially cause flash floods, landslides and forests fires,” Zulfahmi added.

Last year, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed a deal with the Norwegian government, stipulating that Indonesia would avoid deforestation in exchange for a US$1 billion grant.

Among the first steps Indonesia took to implement the deal was imposing a moratorium on forest conversions from 2011 to 2013.

Disagreements between the Forestry Ministry and a newly established presidential taskforce on reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) programs has hampered the government’s efforts to implement a legal framework for the moratorium by January.

The disagreements includes different opinions on which forests should be included in the moratorium and whether the new taskforce would be given authority to change the forest management — traditionally the domain of the ministry.

Zulfahmi said the government should use the moratorium to enhance forest management.

“The moratorium should be a time to evaluate forestry policies and to develop Indonesian forests for civil society interests.” (swd)