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akarta: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met with Kumi Naidoo, the international executive director of environment group Greenpeace at the Presidential Office on Thursday.

“Your organization is recognized as a credible one. Your dedication and hard work, including criticism of all countries in the world, in my opinion, have been a big part of the solution,” Yudhoyono said upon welcoming the activists for a 30-minute meeting, according to a press release.

“You and I are actually in the same boat. We share a similar dream,” the President added.

On the President’s side were Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya and Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan. Naidoo, meanwhile, was accompanied by Greenpeace’s Southeast Asia executive director Von Hernandez, Indonesia country representative Nur Hidayati and Global Forest Campaign Indonesia head Bustar Maitar.

Naido said Greenpeace appreciated Indonesia’s commitment in overcoming environmental issues such as reducing carbon emissions to 26 percent by 2020. According to him, the percentage could jump to 41 percent with international support.

“In the meeting, President Yudhoyono showed that economic development can go side by side and synergistically with environmental protection and poverty-rate reductions,” the South African activist said.

He said he agreed with Yudhoyono, citing oil palm plantations as an example. “Greenpeace has never been in the position of rejecting palm oil. What we are concerned with is promoting palm oil businesses with respect to environmental sustainability that benefits not only the economy, but also the environment,” he said.

Naidoo said they also discussed the upcoming Rio+20 Meeting on sustainable development.

“Greenpeace supports the Indonesian government in the global arena in promoting issues such as carbon emissions reduction as well as the development of renewable and clean energy,” he said.